[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 up, but it's a cool concept and well in line with the character !)


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

It's now *recent* ! Lucien was born on Oct. 22nd (yesterday French time). I'd post a photo but I'm limited to 1 byte attachments for some reason, which is slightly unreasonable for a jpg ;)

I have a quarter of the next narrative part and one of the seekings written up, and I'll catch up with everything as soon as humanly possible. Which may not be that soon...

Still, collective thanks for your continuing attention ! I'm still surprised Lord Triky hasn't commented on his (somewhat cheeky on my part) inclusion in the narrative. Now integrating Dies Irea is going to be a tough challenge !

[Ubermonkey]

The whole thing is really cool. I hope my mage game plays out as well as this (it also starts with a train wreck and awakening, although on the San Francisco BART)

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Ubergringo
The whole thing is really cool. I hope my mage game plays out as well as this (it also starts with a train wreck and awakening, although on the San Francisco BART)

Thanks Gringo !

I you have it figured out, I'm curious to know what the rationale is behind your "explosions" !

(For what it's worth, I have only decided last week, about three months into the game, what my explanation was !)

[Gez]

Originally posted by Sammael99
I'd post a photo but I'm limited to 1 byte attachments for some reason, which is slightly unreasonable for a jpg ;)

The reason is that the RPG.net admin wanted to disable the feature totally, and somehow couldn't, so they set the limit to the minimum instead.

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Gez
The reason is that the RPG.net admin wanted to disable the feature totally, and somehow couldn't, so they set the limit to the minimum instead.

Hey Gez !

Nice to see you here !

What do you think of the story so far ?

[Sammael99]

So it was that Louise’s fragile world was rocked once again. This time, the spark came from an intrusion in her virtual privacy, in the form of an unusual spam e-mail, which was slightly odd considering that Pi had recommended her this new, spam-free, unsupervised mail server...

From : ip@413.org
To : louise@securemail.com
Object : Hi Baby !

Gay or straight, I know you wAnt to suck my Rocks ! i’m sure you remembEr all the naughty stuff we Did, night and day pUmping and grunting ! don’t say No, you know yOu like it Raunchy and Dirty ! so if you’d Like to get intO it, cliCK bElow foR hundredS of dirt pics, sixty-nines, facials, bestality. Hurry up !

www.pipi.com

Louise nearly dumped the e-mail, but the url at the bottom made her stop. She hadn’t heard from Pi in a while, and so his name was high on her mind... If it was a coincidence, it was a bit much. She printed the e-mail then destroyed it. She scanned the printed spam for a while, and decided that there must be something in the odd pattern of capitalised letters. She quickly found it : they spelled “GARE DU NORD LOCKERS”.

Louise called Charles and Bob, and told them to meet her ASAP at the Gare du Nord. Half an hour later, the three of them sat in a café opposite the station. Louise showed them the e-mail she had printed...

- “What makes you think there’s something to it ?”, Charles asked.

- “Well, the fact that I shouldn’t be getting spam on this address, to start with, but also the e-mail address, which is pi backwards and 314 backwards. Pi is 3.14, remember... Not to mention the url...”

- “Did you click on it ?”, Bob asked.

- “Yes. It’s just what the name suggests : disgusting photos of naked women peeing...”

- “Coooool !”, Bob answered.

Louise ignored him. “The interesting thing is this. When I string all the capitalised letters, I come up with ‘GARE DU NORE LOCKERS’, which is why I told you to meet me here...”

- “The weird thing is”, Charles replied slowly, “that the lockers have been closed to the public ever since the ‘terrorist’ threats started last year... Do you think Pi would have left something for us in there ?”

- “It’s a possibility. Assuming the message is from him, that’s what it seems to be hinting at...”

- “OK. Let’s go then. Which lockers do you think we should investigate ?”, Charles asked.

- “Well, 69, to start with...”

- “At your service, Mam’”, Bob drooled...

And so they went into the station. It was swarming with people, but, as Charles had said, the three locker areas were cordoned off with orange police tape. Charles quietly walked to the area marked “1-149”, and dropped his pen inconspicuously. The pen rolled on the other side of the cordon, and Charles went to retrieve it. As soon as he was on the other side, he quickly walked to the locker marked 69. He clutched the odd piece of metal that he always kept in his pocket, and tried to open the locker. The rusted lock quickly snapped and the door opened. It was empty.

Charles picked up his pen and made a head sign to Louise, letting her know that there was nothing in there.

Meanwhile, Bob, who was a lot more conspicuous than his colleagues, was being hassled by policemen for ‘standing and not doing anything’. He decided to play it safe, he didn’t want to earn a night in the pen when there were more important things to be done... With his best smile, he handed over his papers. Since they were all in order, the policemen just told him to beat it, which he did.

The three Mages met outside the station to discuss the situation :

- “OK, so it wasn’t locker 69”, Louise said. “Any other ideas ?”

- “Well, we could try 314, or maybe 413 as it appears in the e-mail”, Charles said.

- “Good point. I’ll do it this time”, Louise added.

She went back into the station and up the stairs to the upper locker area marked ‘300-449’. She slipped under the orange tape, and waited for a few minutes. Some people saw her, but they didn’t seem to pay attention or be surprised by her presence there. Ever since her awakening, Louise had noticed that most people tended to ignore her unless she was the one to initiate contact. In the present circumstances, this was a boon she would make good use of...

Once she was pretty certain no one was observing her, she walked to the wall of lockers. By a strange chance, a short circuit affected the room, and all the electronic locks opened at once. Louise felt a strange tingle on her skin and wondered if she hadn’t stretched the laws of reality a little too far despite the apparent coincidence. She ignored the fact for the moment, and opened locker 314. There was a sports bag in there. She grabbed it quickly and walked outside the locker area.

She signalled to Charles and Bob to follow her from a distance, and walked to an unoccupied bus stop. The ‘boys’ met her there, and all three decided not to open the bag in public. They took three different routes to a nearby pub where they found a somewhat isolated table.

They ordered their drinks, waited until they had been served, and then Charles checked out the bag. Still holding his odd piece of unknown metal in his hand, he closed his eyes. In his mind, he could detail the fabric of the bag, the weave of the nylon strands. He pushed beyond that and suddenly he could detail the inside of the bag. There were three cardboard boxes, each containing an odd looking pair of goggles full of electronics and some wire. There was also a piece of paper. He broke up his concentration...

- “It’s safe... I think.”, he said.

Bob opened the bag, extracted the piece of paper and one of the boxes. The piece of paper had two words scribbled on it : ‘Maltese Falcon’. The box was made of plain grey cardboard. There was no brand, logo, barcode or indication of any sort on the box and yet it looked like it had just shipped straight from a factory. Bob cautiously opened it, and extracted a pair of plastic goggles fixed to a soft rubber helmet which incorporated earplugs. The contraption was wired to a cable ending in a USB-like plug.

- “Cool !” Bob, said.

- “Do you know what this is ?”, Louise asked.

- “Yep ! Keltos has one. It’s a VR helmet. He does some wicked online gaming with this.”

- “I suspect that Pi doesn’t particularly want us to play online games...”, Louise snapped.

- “No”, Charles answered pensively. “But do you remember him telling us that there was a Virtual World in which his Tradition held a lot of power ? That’s where he met his techno contacts... Maybe he needs us to get there now...”

- “But how do we do that ?”, Louise asked. “Do we just plug this into any computer ?”

- “I could always ask Keltos if he can lend us his...”, Bob interjected. “It’s a really powerful machine apparently, and Pi rigged it, so maybe it’s better if we do it that way...”

- “Yes, let’s do that.”, Louise said.

And so Bob called Keltos, asking him if they could drop by his place and borrow usage of his computer for a couple of hours. Keltos agreed. Louise still felt like they should be careful and split up to go there, but Bob pointed out that considering where Keltos lived, she may not want to go on her own... In the end, they went using Louise’s car, and roughly a half hour later, she parked near Keltos’ place.

He lived in a derelict and theoretically abandoned building, a suburban artists’ squat (23). Bob showed them the entrance through a barred window that had been forced into, and they climbed several flights of stairs. The inhabitants were numerous and the living conditions squalid, but it was easy to feel the sense of community. Finally, they arrived in front of Keltos’ den. There was only a curtain blocking the doorframe, and Bob announed himself before entering.

It was like entering in a pocket outside the real world. Overgrown vegetation was everywhere. There was moss on the floor, and large overwhelming green leaves formed a canopy that hid the ugly concrete of the true ceiling. Keltos was standing there, playing a flute when they entered. He dropped his flute on the twisted root of a tree that happened to have a flat area. There was a small portable computer there as well, and a few other objects. It was, for all intents and purposes, Keltos’ table.

- “Here’s the PC”, Keltos said, pointing at the small computer. “I’ll be leaving you to it if that’s alright with you. I have some crops to check on !”

- “Is there any way to lock the room ?”, Louise asked.

- “Nope, but I can ask my neighbours to warn you if there’s any weird shit...”

- “Please, if you could’, Louise asked, not much reassured...

Charles was looking over the computer.

- “Errr... Keltos ?”, he asked. “Where is the electricity cord and where can we plug the computer ?”

- “Oh don’t worry, it doesn’t need any electricity, which is a good thing since there’s none in the building...”

- “How is that possible ?”, Charles asked, impressed.

- “Ask Pi next time you see him !!!”

Keltos left, and the three mages gathered around the computer.

- “I’m not too comfortable with this”, Louise said. “I think maybe one of us shouldn’t plug himself. What if someone followed us here and springs us while we’re wearing these goggles ?”

- “Oh come one Louise ! Why are you being so paranoïd !”, Charles asked.

- “Well, Pi was real careful not to leave any traces, so I’m assuming he must be in trouble. Being careless in return doesn’t seem like the best option...”

- “Louise,” Bob said. “I’ve been staying here with Keltos several times, and I can guarantee that everyone in this building sticks together. If anything happens, they’ll let us know real quick, believe me...”

Louise reluctantly relented. They sat cross-legged on the green moss, and Charles plugged the three VR sets in the back of the computer. Each of them fitted his flexible helmet on his head. The sets covered their eyes and ears, but nothing seemed to happen.

- “What do we do now ?”, Charles asked.

- “I remember Bob clicking on this icon here”, Bob said.

He clicked on it, and for half a second, it was as if the floor had gone from under their feet. They felt like they were falling, and suddenly, they felt like they had just hit the floor...

***

(23) Artists’ Squat : In Paris, a building occupied illegally by homeless people is called a ‘squat’. I’m not sure if the term is used outside of France despite being an English word. Artistic communes often form around these squats and there are regular stories in the news about their expulsions.

[Gez]

Originally posted by Sammael99
Hey Gez !

Nice to see you here !

What do you think of the story so far ?

I just finished reading it. It's interesting and, there's a few questions...
The symbol that appeared on each of the young mages has five sections. There are strands between each of the mages, and also between them and someone, or something, else. I suspect there is, or there will be, a fifth link as well?

Also, I'm curious about your paradox rules. It seems to weaken those who accumulates it.

[Peteinmelb]

I'm loving this tale, dude. Played mage years ago for a little while, and was always a fan of the idea, but don't really do a lot with it now. Just reading this cause the story rocks and you're telling brilliantly. Keep it up man, i have to find out how it ends or at least plays out.

[Gully Foyle]

I am seriously enjoying this tale, sammael. Keep it coming, and congrats on the addition to the family.

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Gez
I just finished reading it. It's interesting and, there's a few questions...
The symbol that appeared on each of the young mages has five sections. There are strands between each of the mages, and also between them and someone, or something, else. I suspect there is, or there will be, a fifth link as well?


All this will be explained... or not, as the case may be ;)

But you're right in thinking this is significant !


Also, I'm curious about your paradox rules. It seems to weaken those who accumulates it.

I was always unhappy about the paradox rules. Although they played well, they never seemed consistent with the concept of reality backlash. as someone pointed on rpg.net in a thread about Paradox, if reality lashes back because you stretch it too far, it should do so following its own rules, not breaking them.

So what i do is that I track down the amount of paradox earned. You only earn it when you use vulgar effects, and then it's one point if there's no witness, and level of sphere is there is.

I also track down which sphere or spheres generate the paradox. When paradox strikes back, it strikes in a coincidental way, using the spheres that generated it and up to the level earned. Which can be real nasty. I decide when it strikes, and if enough is earned on a given spot, it can strike immediately.

When Paradox is earned, there's an odd sensation, a 'glitchy feeling', for the Bone readers out there. Something that lets you know that you paradox bank account has just been credited ;)

So far, none of the players have earned more than one paradox point, and it never has been expanded (not much you can do with a level of one in any sphere) There will soon be a striking demonstration of how dangerous Paradox can be though... When we resume play !

[Whymme]

Wow! I completely missed this thread before, but now I read all of it in one session. Good stuff, Sammael. Good introduction to Mage and to Paris at the same time.

Next time I visit Paris, I want you to be my guide :)

Whymme

[Buffalo]

Great stuff, Sammael 99, the game and the write-up both. Congrats on the new offspring. I am sorry a photo is not possible.

I appreciate the footnotes, for those of us who have not made it out of the hemisphere. I have looked at some of the Paris catacomb photos online. Fascinating! Even in the much newer city of New York, someone will occasionally break into a forgotten section of tunnel.

My SO, Bearcat, tried to get our gaming group into Mage, and may yet again, since it coincides best with his view of reality of any game we have run into. You make the differences between schools of thought vivid.

I would like to get one of those spam-free computers!

Thanks for sharing your time and talent.

Buffalo in Montana

[Sammael99]

First of all, thanks for all this support !

It does take time to write, and although it's not done only for the public, it's nice to have feedback from you guys nonetheless ! Keep it coming.

I had an amusing thought checking where the various posters were located : it seems that this Narrative attracts as many if not more gamers from outside the US. What does this mean ? Here's the tally :

USA 3
England 1
Jamaica 1
France 1
Australia 1
Netherlands 1
Unknown 4


Would this feed the "rumour" according to which Mage would have more appeal outside of the USA ? Or is it because the European setting appeals more to non-Americans ? Or maybe it's just because there are simply hundreds of readers who haven't posted ;)

Now, for Whymme :

Next time I visit Paris, I want you to be my guide


Why not ? It would be fun to do an exploration of the occult Paris with various people unfamiliar with Paris. To be honest, I don't know that much of it first hand, but there's a most excellent book called the "Guide du Paris Mystérieux" which details lots of odd places of mystical or legendary significance. I'd love to map out a real "tour" based on that !

And for Buffalo :

Great stuff, Sammael 99, the game and the write-up both. Congrats on the new offspring. I am sorry a photo is not possible.


So am I ! I'll try and upload somehting this week. Let's just say that he is not only cute and loveable, but also has decided that his parents deserved six hours sleep at night. Thanks, Lucien !

;)


I appreciate the footnotes, for those of us who have not made it out of the hemisphere. I have looked at some of the Paris catacomb photos online. Fascinating! Even in the much newer city of New York, someone will occasionally break into a forgotten section of tunnel.


The nitpicker in me wants to point out that we share a hemisphere, but I know what you mean ;) Do you know that I actually never managed to visit the 'real' catacombs ? Just a matter of time, I guess... I did a few forays into some dark tunnels in my misspent youth, but that's about it. Here's another thing I need to do when we organise the above 'tour'.


My SO, Bearcat, tried to get our gaming group into Mage, and may yet again, since it coincides best with his view of reality of any game we have run into. You make the differences between schools of thought vivid.


And what does he think of the story ?

One of the things that bugged me in the early versions of Mage and even more so in the later ones was that groups coalesced around how they did Magic and not why they did Magic. In my game, I've tried to emphasize, beyond the objectives of the individuals, the fact that the traditions and conventions were linked by aims rather than techniques. Which does throw paradigm out the window pretty quickly, unfortunately, but that's the way I like it, and my players aren't complaining !


I would like to get one of those spam-free computers!


So far, all that Louise has got is a spam-free email. I'm guessing Pi's computer(s) must be spam-free, wireless and self-powered ! Talk about a cool gizmo !!!

Anyway, you guys have pumped me some energy (despite the general tiredness of the period, from a personal standpoint), so I'll try to write some more this week.

Thanks again !

[Whymme]

Originally posted by Buffalo
I would like to get one of those spam-free computers!

Ahem.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/mail/
Cans more Spam
Widely lauded for its ability to identify and dispatch spam, Mail now packs an improved filtering engine, offers better accuracy, includes more filtering options and provides more powerful protection against spammers.

If, for example, your ISP uses Spam Assassin, Brightmail or another spam-analysis tool, Mail can now leverage that analysis. You’ll find an option for doing so in the new Junk Mail preferences panel. To further ensure your privacy, you can also direct Mail NOT to download images included in junk messages, thus circumventing a common trick used by spammers.

[Buffalo]

Originally posted by Sammael99
I had an amusing thought checking where the various posters were located : it seems that this Narrative attracts as many if not more gamers from outside the US. What does this mean ? Here's the tally :

USA 3
England 1
Jamaica 1
France 1
Australia 1
Netherlands 1
Unknown 4


Would this feed the "rumour" according to which Mage would have more appeal outside of the USA ? Or is it because the European setting appeals more to non-Americans ? Or maybe it's just because there are simply hundreds of readers who haven't posted ;)***



I love hearing voices from people in countries other than the US. It's one of the things I enjoy about this forum.
As to the nationalities of all the lurkers, who knows? Is there a breakdown somewhere on member nationality?

I know for myself it is easier in some ways to set a game in an area I am familiar with. But if I make the setting too literal, I am always afraid some gamer will say "No, the library is two blocks over."

Running fantasy games with Montana gamers is funny in some ways, like having a PC who wants to make "Yee Haw!" his battle cry, and everyone assuming that trail food equals jerky, and assuming that fireball spells are going to set the woods on fire. In southern central, and eastern US areas where I have lived previously, we didn't get these raging forest fires like in California now and in Montana this summer.
It's close to 1500 people who have looked at this thread now. How many have read would be another story!

Buffalo

[Buffalo]

Originally posted by Sammael99
Let's just say that he is not only cute and loveable, but also has decided that his parents deserved six hours sleep at night. Thanks, Lucien !

;)


I will have to say your experience is not the usual. While my boys were and are cute and loveable (both grown men,) and had other braggable quilities like not drooling or spitting up or keeping me up at night sick, neither was eager to sleep through the night.

And both were early risers. Though you would never know it now.

Buffalo

[Buffalo]

Originally posted by Sammael99
The nitpicker in me wants to point out that we share a hemisphere, but I know what you mean ;) Do you know that I actually never managed to visit the 'real' catacombs ? Just a matter of time, I guess... I did a few forays into some dark tunnels in my misspent youth, but that's about it. Here's another thing I need to do when we organise the above 'tour'.


I meant of course the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, the ones that you cross oceans to visit. Yes I know, you can cross over an ice cap or boat hop the Aleutians.

I had the good fortune a few years ago to be in a group that decided to invent live roleplaying. Our leader, who some believe to be the inspiration for Indiana Jones, (his aunt worked for Lucas and she told him tales of his exploits,) took us into a old copper mine using our torches for light, through the tunnels under Sandy Hook designed for defense of New York Harbor, and non-roped mountain climbing. Mt. Bonticou I think it was, was a mountain of boulders left by the last ice age. More strenous than hiking, you climbed from boulder to boulder following yellow paint marks. Most of the adults dropped out early, but my younger son, then 8, made it most of the way to the top before making the mistake of looking back. And down.
He made it down, too.

We learned firsthand that a water balloon thrown through perfectly clear air can catch that snag you didn't see. Oops, rolled a one!

Buffalo

[Buffalo]

Originally posted by Sammael99

And what does he think of the story ?

So far, all that Louise has got is a spam-free email. I'm guessing Pi's computer(s) must be spam-free, wireless and self-powered ! Talk about a cool gizmo !!!


I have emailed him the thread but he just started a new job, he may have deleted my email among the spam or just not gotten to it yet. If things settle down bit I'll remind him.

Buffalo

[Cessna]

Originally posted by Buffalo
I will have to say your experience is not the usual. While my boys were and are cute and loveable (both grown men,) and had other braggable quilities like not drooling or spitting up or keeping me up at night sick, neither was eager to sleep through the night.

And both were early risers. Though you would never know it now.

Buffalo


Mind if I show "Co-pilot" this thread...?

[Ubermonkey]

Originally posted by Sammael99
Thanks Gringo !

I you have it figured out, I'm curious to know what the rationale is behind your "explosions" !

(For what it's worth, I have only decided last week, about three months into the game, what my explanation was !)

My train wreck is completely mundane, its fate that leads the characters there. (Its an End Of The World Epic type game, so fate is my ultimate excuse:p )

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Ubergringo
My train wreck is completely mundane, its fate that leads the characters there. (Its an End Of The World Epic type game, so fate is my ultimate excuse:p )

Not a bad excuse as they go. Hey ! White Wolf did ten years of good business on that idea and they're going out with a bang in a few months time !!!

;)

[Buffalo]

Originally posted by Cessna
Mind if I show "Co-pilot" this thread...?

(Back after email outage) of course! Anything I write knowing that thousands of people could see it, is fair game!

Mom

[Gez]

Hey, I knew the name of that historian chick in the characters reminded me of something...

http://www.google.fr/search?q=pierre+vidal-naquet

Pierre Vidal-Naquet is a famous historian.

[Thierry]

Nice work, Ben - and amusing to see how you weave the Parisian landscape in your narrative. I don't know Mage, but it seems your game is almost systemless so far, isn't it ?

( oh yeah, and permission to make me die a horrible death as a random NPC granted ;))

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Thierry Michel
Nice work, Ben - and amusing to see how you weave the Parisian landscape in your narrative. I don't know Mage, but it seems your game is almost systemless so far, isn't it ?


Not exactly systemless, no. It's a little low on dicerolls so far, because few rolls have been necessary, and because after two years of GMing D&D, it is somewhat pleasurable to let the story flow and only involve dicerolls when really necessary ! However, all magic involves dice and the Mage system for that is a beauty. A somewhat free-form beauty, but a beauty nonetheless. If you'd like me to detail a little, I will !

I strongly encourage you to get Mage (2nd ed. if you find it, they have it second-hand at l'Oeuf Cube) Knowing your tastes in games, I think you'll like it...


( oh yeah, and permission to make me die a horrible death as a random NPC granted ;))

It may happen sooner than you think ! Well, as soon as I resume writing ! Lucien doesn't sleep through the nights yet although he seems to be getting there a lot faster than expected. So there is hope !

[Gez]

It makes me think... What had you in mind for my screenname for that aborted D&D campaign ?

[Kingleon]

Wow, dude. I like this alot, I just stayed up till 3 am to read it all. Your ideas of magick and paradox correspond with most of the ideas I've had (I'm a poor White Wolf newbie who has somehow managed to get his hands on a Revised edition and a Second Edition copies of Mage, which makes me one confused guy! Thankfully, I found a Second Edition game to be in, even though the GM adapted the Revised Paradox rules). I especially like how you are more for the "enlightened reality shaper" aspect of Mage, which is what I think really makes Mage stand out from other games of its sort. If I ever end up running my own game of Mage, you'll certainly be one of my inspirations.

I'll make sure to watch this thread for now on... Maybe I'll go look for that thread on Paradox you mentioned... Does the Paradox only come off as coincidental backlashes in your game, or can it just bleed off like normal? Just curious. Keep up the fine STing, and thank your players too for offering us such fine entertainment.

[Sammael99]

In response to King Leon, and in order to keep you guys waiting for the follow-ups to the narrative, I will post a couple of house rules in the coming days. They're easier to write up than the story, and I'm too tired to find the energy for the story right now. Part of it has been written though, so it should only be a matter of weeks !

Various other responses to Gez : yes, Louise's name was in relation to PVN, a famous French historian. I don't remember what I'd intended to cast you as in the D&D Story Hour, but I know what I will cast you as in the Mage one ;)

[Sammael99]

Paradox : As mentioned earlier in the thread, the Paradox rules I use originate from various things I read here on rpg.net and my dissatisfaction with the existing Paradox rules. The crux of it is that
Paradox backlash should never be vulgar
Paradox pushes back with the tools it was abused with, ie. the spheres that generated it.
Paradox is unrelated to how well you perform magic. It’s a feature of consensual reality, not magical proficiency
So, keeping that in mind, here’s how Paradox works : Mages accumulate sphere specific Paradox points when they perform Vulgar magic.
Vulgar without witness generates one Paradox point in the highest sphere used in the effect (or GM choice)
Vulgar with witness generates a number of Paradox points equal to the rank of the highest sphere used in the effect in said sphere
Each time paradox is gained, the Mage must roll Arete with a difficulty equal to the total number of Paradox points earned. A failure indicates that a Paradox backlash will occur during the coming scene. A botch indicates that the backlash is immediate. This represents the ability of Mages to avoid immediate Paradox effects, an ability which grows with experience. Note that a success does not cancel Paradox points, it just delays the inevitable.
Paradox gained can backlash or bleed off into Paradox effects using a Sphere and Rank up to what has been gained. Bleeding may happen at any time, basically when the GM finds it will add to the narrative. The Mage does not necessarily know that what affects him or his environment is Paradox, but he can figure it out on an Awareness roll.
This method is much more in line with how I feel Paradox should work (but mileage may vary, obviously !) It has the added advantage of giving the GM a nice way to up the ante when the players have it too easy by triggering their Paradox bleed. The only drawback is that there’s a little bit of bookkeeping. Nothing major, though... Another thing I like is that the players don’t really know how much Paradox they have gained (well, they could, but they don’t ;))

Examples :
Charles experiments in his living room. He pushed his hand through a wooden table using the Sphere of Matter. This is vulgar without witness, he gains 1 Matter Paradox Point.
Louise is standing in the middle of the desert, when a nefarious creature attacks her. She zaps him using Forces 3 and Prime 2 (to feed the pattern). Unknown to her, a bedouin has witnessed the whole scene. She gains 3 Forces Paradox Points.
Bob currently has 3 Mind Paradox Points and 2 Entropy Paradox Points. He performs a vulgar Time effect without witness and earns an additional Time Paradox point. He rolls his Arete (3) and fails. In the coming scene, a big Time+Mind+Entropy effect or a series of coincidental Time, Mind and/or Entropy effects will target him.

[Kingleon]

Ah, thank you. Interesting rules for Paradox. Do you use the Second Edition method of dropping foci?

Also, I read this in another thread... you gave the 9 sphere sheets from Hidden Lore to your characters? I'm just curious what those lists are like and how useful they are...

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Kingleon
Ah, thank you. Interesting rules for Paradox. Do you use the Second Edition method of dropping foci?


Nope ! That's my next House Rules post ;)

Also, I read this in another thread... you gave the 9 sphere sheets from Hidden Lore to your characters? I'm just curious what those lists are like and how useful they are...

They are exact reprints of the summary sheets that list powers per level in the Sphere descriptions of 2nd Ed. Useful, but not comprehensive. I have also let them read the full section with examples, and I'm encouraging them to read it again and again during 'downtime', because it will give them more and more versatility.

For now, however, I'm pretty pleased about how inventive they have been in using their powers. I haven't seen cross-sphere effects yet (apart from the classic prime feeds pattern thing), but it's only a matter of time. And truth be told, there has been little action so far. That is about to change ;)

[Sammael99]

Paradigm & Foci :Note that this hasn’t been applied as such so far. It will be when we resume play though. Basically, my gripe with Paradigm and foci is that
it’s essentially a flavour thing given an overly complicated mechanic and a weak justification (IMO)
every time I GMed or played Mage, some of the players had trouble relating to the foci.
i dislike the default assumption in recent stuff that Mages are unaware of the fact that they can shed their foci. The whole 'technocratic mage that doesn't realise his magic isn't science' does not convince me in the least...
A combination of an Exalted mechanic and a thing I liked in the old Ars Magica (can’t remember if it’s still in the more recent rules) gave me the solution : basically, the players will ‘stunt’ their magical effects (à la Exalted).

What this means is that they don’t have to decide on foci for each sphere anymore, they have to describe what they do to power each effect as relates to their tradition. Depending on the description they will get up to three bonus dice on the Arete roll, capped by the highest level of sphere used. This mechanic is a lot more freeform, it doesn’t make foci/paradigm necessary (and I’ve always felt it shouldn’t be, since the whole point about paradigm is that you can and must get rid of it as you grow), it just makes them useful to begin with.

Examples :
Bob concentrates to affect a policeman’s mind. He gets no bonus dice.
Bob fondles his crotch to influence a security guard’s mind. He gets one bonus dice.
Bob has a wild love-making session with a sexy girl on the scene of a murder to power up a time effect intending at viewing the murder. He gets two bonus dice.
Bob organises a wild orgy with dozens of participants in an abandoned warehouse to feed a powerful Mind/Entropy magical effect designed at making passers-by ignore the Warehouse. He gets three bonus dice.

[Kingleon]

Ah, thank you... my question about Hidden Lore was just a curiousity of mine, because I have found myself expanding my Mage collection based on utility, but if that's all they are, I could technically type up my own versions of such sheets.

Your foci rules are interesting... Hmm. Maybe I'll try them out someday.

Can't think of anymore questions, unless you have more house rules to show off.

[Sammael99]

When the fall ended, it felt to Charles a little like this fleeting moment when you bunjee jump and the elastic rope suddenly tightens, pulling you up when gravity wants you to continue going down… As if one part of you went back up while the other continued towards the ground. But Charles didn’t have much time to ponder. As ‘normal’ sensations resumed, he found himself in a smelly, humid street. It was night. A neon someway away provided inadequate lighting, just enough to see that facing him were an old man who liked just like Bob Markey could have, had he still been alive, and a generously endowed die-blonde woman in her 30s, dressed in a gaudy ‘sexy’ red dress.

The old rastafarian spoke with Bob’s voice :

- “Hello, lady. Do I know you from someplace ?”, he said with as husky a voice as he could manage.

- “It’s me, Louise, you dumbass !”, the lady responded with Louise’s voice.

- “If I may say so,” Bob replied, his voice still ‘sexy’, “you look much better in virtual reality !”

The tingling sensation on his cheek that soon followed did not in the least feel ‘virtual’.

- “Now what do we do ?”, Louise asked, turning towards Charles.

Charles looked like a nazi scientist straight out of an Indiana Jones movie : round metal glasses, greasy hair and a white lab coat stained with blood. Louise couldn’t help but smile at the sick sense of humour displayed by whoever had decided on their appearance in this virtual reality. She suspected it was Pi. Someone else was in need of a good smack in the face...

Charles was looking at a dirty wall nearby scribbled with tags and inscriptions.

- “Look, here !”, he said, pointing at a specific scribbling. It looked somewhat like a Greek Pi symbol circled in red. There was an arrow pointing from there to the right.

- “We should follow the indication, I guess...”, Charles said.

- “Unless this is totally unrelated”, Louise pointed, sceptical.

- “Do you still believe in coincidence ?”, Bob asked facetiously.

He started walking down the narrow street, soon followed by Charles and a reluctant Louise.

They weren’t alone in the street. However, the appearance of the various passers by didn’t motivate our three newbies to engage in conversation. In quick succession, they crossed a green-haired snarling punk-rocker with more skin pierced than unpierced (at least from what was apparent), the Mad Hatter from Disney’s version of Alice in Wonderland, and a snarling wolf-man. Charles and Louise kept looking for more Pi symbols on the walls, but to no avail.

Finally, they stopped by a small metal door lit by a blinking pink neon sign that proclaimed the place’s name to be ‘The Spy’s Demise’.

- “This place is freaky and dangerous.”, Louise said. “How do we get out ?”

- “Dunno”, Charles replied. “But if Pi sent us here, and if he needs out help, I don’t want to leave just yet.”

- “Guys, is this little bridge painted on the wall the sign you’re looking for ?”, Bob asked innocently.

Louise looked where Bob was pointing. The sign was discreet, just above the metal door. It was indeed a Pi letter.

- “I think we should go in,” Charles said.

Louise obviously disagreed, but she didn’t have anything better to suggest.

Charles pushed the door open, and the three of them walked into a badly lit office with a large 1940s wooden desk. Behind the desk, a brunette woman dressed in black looked up at them. She was smoking a cigarette in a cigarette holder and looked like a character our of a novel by Chandler. She spoke one word, in a low voice : ‘Password ?’

The silence lasted a few seconds. Then Bob spoke :

- “Maltese Falcon, baby !”

The woman behind the desk seemed to press a button inside a drawer, and the outline of a door appeared on one of the walls. She motioned them forward.

They walked through this new door and emerged on a high gangwalk overlooking what looked like a high-tech disco. It looked like one of those neo-industrial places set in a a heavily refitted factory or warehouse. The place was so big that they couldn’t see exactly how big it was. There were neon lights and rotating sparkling balls everywhere. Just by the side of the stairs that led down from where they were, they saw a bar surrounded by many tables. They walked to an empty one and waved to a waiter.

All the waiters and waitresses were dressed in the exact same uniform, a very classical combination of black and white, but the clothes design was modern and they didn’t look at all out of place. A waitress with a strict haircut approached their table :

- “How can I help you ?”

- “Err...”, Charles hesitated, wondering how they were going to pay for the drinks.

The waitress seems to sense his unease :

- “As a welcoming gesture to new customers, the Spy’s Demise is happy to offer you the first drink !”

They ordered their drinks and started observing the strange environment. Although the patrons of the bar didn’t seem quite as wild, on the whole, as some of those they had crossed in the street, there was still a diversity of fashion and style that was a dead giveaway to the fact that this was not the real world : here, a trenchcoat wearing cigarette-smoking dark haired guy was talking with a napoleon-era officer, there a naked man was dancing with a Trinity lookalike. No one batted an eyelid. This was business as usual at the Spy’s Demise.

The bar was on one of the sides of the large room. From where they were standing, they could see an elevated dance floor on one side and a casino area on another. Also, along the walls, there seemed to be quiet alcoves where patrons could meet in a somewhat less visible (and most likely, audible) manner.

The waitress came back with the drinks. Despite what she had said earlier, she also deposited a folded tab. Louise grabbed it and checked its contents. It just said ‘With the compliments of the Spy’s Demise’. However, folded inside the tab, was a golden card that shone a little. It was the size of a credit card, although somewhat heavier in feel. Louise scrutinised the card, but there was no inscription or indication as to its use.

The three mages didn’t really know what to do. Louise went for a walk around the bar area, trying to see any slot in which the card could be inserted, but she found nothing but odd glances. She’d never felt like such a newbie since her first day teaching at university. Bob checked out the Casino area, but he didn’t have any chips, and no one told him how he was to acquire any...

Meanwhile, Charles decided to try magic. He clutched his piece of odd-metal in one hand and concentrated, willing gloves to appear on his hands. Something happened. It wasn’t quite the sensation he was used to when he used his control over matter, but it was something. He now looked like an evil nazi scientist with a bloodied lab coat, round glasses and black leather gloves...

When Bob came back, him and Charles they decided to try and ‘conjure’ some casino chips. Charles concentrated and... something happened. Yet it wasn’t exactly what had happened with the gloves. If was something different again, and Charles felt drained. But when he opened his hand, there were a bunch of green and yellow Casino chips.

Charles and Bob sat at one of the tables and played. They loosed a couple of turns and decided to stop there. When they walked back to the table, Louise was sitting there sulking. She had just been asked by the bar manager to stop snooping around and opening doors.

- “I hate this place”, she said. “How do we get out ?”

- “Can’t we just walk out the door ?”, Bob asked.

Louise looked exasperated.

- “Not this shitty nightclub !”, she said, “this shitty Matrix is what I want to get out of !”

- “Oh.”, Bob answered. “I don’t know. I think it’s kinda cool...”

- “You would, wouldn’t you...”

They finally decided to leave, and found an exit. They went through a revolving door and ended up... in the middle of a cobbled street. There were lots of people in this street. All of them were dressed in the latest European Dark Ages fashion, complete with mud, dirt and snot. Needless to say, Bob, Louise and Charles stood right out. A city guard wearing a leather jerkin and carrying a lance approached them. He didn’t look to happy :

- “Man, get out with these freaky avatars !”, he shouted at them. “Spoiling the game for the rest of us just do display your hacking skills is really poor...”

- “Fuck you !”, Louise snapped.

- “Calm down, Louise”, Charles said.

Just at that moment, an armoured knight nearly ran over Louise. She snapped :

- “I don’t wanna calm down ! I don’t wanna be here, knowing anyone could be doing anything to my real body and there’s no one looking over it, and I don’t know how to get out and we’ve got this fucking card and...”

She stopped. She’d been waving the gold card in front of them during her rant, and she now noticed that above the card, two words had appeared in the air with a little arrow below them pointing to the card. The two words were : “TEAR ME”.

Louise stood in stunned silence for a second and then she brutally ripped the card. There was a flash of white light and then everything turned green, hot and moist.

[Ubermonkey]

GOD DAMMIT why'd you stop when it was getting good.

May mice ritually flog you with nettles.

:D

Seriously. Cool.

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Ubergringo
GOD DAMMIT why'd you stop when it was getting good.

May mice ritually flog you with nettles.

:D

Seriously. Cool.

I haven't seen any update of your story recently ;)

Time, is the answer, of course, although I seem to have a lull in work activity this week, so I'll try to make profit of it !

Thanks for the compliments !

Ben

[Ubermonkey]

Originally posted by Sammael99
I haven't seen any update of your story recently ;)


Dammit you twisted my arm. I'll post after class.:D

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Ubergringo
Dammit you twisted my arm. I'll post after class.:D

Mutual emulation !

That's what we like !

On my side, the next update should be sooner than expected due to an unforseen sprained ankle...

And most of the first series of seekings are typed up too !

Not to build up suspense or anything...

:D

[Kingleon]

Waiting anxiously to see the next session write-up, dude, but don't rush it. Just wondering if you were done. It gonna be finished soon? Pretty please? I'm on winter break now, so I've been torn away from my precious Mage games for a couple of weeks. Feed my growing MtA goodness hunger!

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Kingleon
Waiting anxiously to see the next session write-up, dude, but don't rush it. Just wondering if you were done. It gonna be finished soon? Pretty please? I'm on winter break now, so I've been torn away from my precious Mage games for a couple of weeks. Feed my growing MtA goodness hunger!

It's not far from being ready... But then again that has been the case for nearly a month. Let's just say that real life gave a solid punch in my personal water barrel, with a kid in hospital, work overload, and various inconveniences like unreliable nannies as cherries on top.

Everything looks like it's going to sort itself out pretty soon. Interestingly enough, as soon as i manage to finish the current story, there's three more seekings already typed up (I did those while they were fresh, so as not to loose their particular spice...), so as soon as I get my act together, expect several updates !

As for the game picking up, that's still uncertain. Lucien's little hospital trip has severaly buggered his feeding rhythm and while he was close to doing normal nights before, he's now further away...

[Kingleon]

Wow, man. Too bad to hear about the kid in the hospital. That really sucks. Like I said, don't rush it. I was just wondering if they were going to be put up soon. Now that I know, I'll wait instead of bugging you again.

I hope you and your family have happy holidays! :)

[Ranko]

Late commer to this Actual Play. I love it, and it is saving my sanity as I am stuck in my sick bed for the last few days.

Hope the kid is better by now.

And a quic question before I go to page three: you mentioned a Paradox write up you are using, can you or anyone else point me to it? I tried a search but too many hits...

Thanks, great sessions...


Now I want to run Mage again :)

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Ranko
Late commer to this Actual Play. I love it, and it is saving my sanity as I am stuck in my sick bed for the last few days.

Hope the kid is better by now.

And a quic question before I go to page three: you mentioned a Paradox write up you are using, can you or anyone else point me to it? I tried a search but too many hits...

Thanks, great sessions...


Now I want to run Mage again :)

Hey Ranko, glad you like it and I hope you get better.

Lucien is now fine and putting on weight like nobody's business. He's also a lot more interactive, smiles and doodles a lot. It's a joy to behold. The holidays haven't been so quite though since both me and my wife came down with ear infections... It's on the mend now and I hope to be able to finish the write-up before work resumes on Monday...

I imagine you have read the Paradox rules I posted on page 7 of this very thread. As for the original discussion, I know it was sometime last year... errr... 2002 is what I meant. I'll try and find it. If I do I'll post it here !

Happy New Year To All My Loyal Readers !
(and all the others as well ;))

[Whymme]

Originally posted by Sammael99
Lucien is now fine and putting on weight like nobody's business. He's also a lot more interactive, smiles and doodles a lot. It's a joy to behold.

Good to hear that. Hope that things keep going well for you and your family this year.

And now post the next installment, damnit!

Whymme :)

[Kingleon]

Great to hear, dude. Happy New Year!

And, yeah, I'm still waiting. My Mage addiction is getting worse, with every Saturday that goes by without my regular game...
Now I'm debating the metaphysics with anyone... I'm starting random debates with my mother about subjective reality. My mom doesn't even roleplay...

Uh... Looking foreward to the next update. :)

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Ranko
And a quic question before I go to page three: you mentioned a Paradox write up you are using, can you or anyone else point me to it? I tried a search but too many hits...


Ranko, I found the thread :

Mage : New Paradox (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35141)

Kingleon, I happened to stumble on a thread about Borges in Tangency. If you haven't read it yet, you must find his short story Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius, it's the ultimate in subjective realty, ie. what happens when the whole world starts believing in another reality...

I'll update ASAP. Promise. I will...

[Sammael99]

Three people are standing in a sea of green, bathed in a slowly fading white illumination.

Around them, nothing but luscious tropical vegetation. Immense trees that seem to reach the cobalt blue sky, tall herbs that hide slithering, buzzing, burrowing life. Insects swarming, heavy drips of water slowly sliding off the huge leaves. As if it had just rained...



Charles had been the only one to expect their appearance to change. He had not been wrong. He now looked like an explorer from a 19th century vignette : cream coloured suit, colonial hardhat, inadequate leather boots and machete. The only anomaly in his costume was the pair of slick black gloves...

Louise felt as if she’d emerged from “Mutiny on the Bounty”. She was wearing animal skins and carrying a crude bow. A pack of arrows were strapped to her back.

As for Bob, he wore only a loincloth and bead necklaces around his neck. In his right hand he carried a spear. A knowledgeable ethnologist would have identified him as a Masaï warrior. Whoever had designed their icons, at least a little bit of research had gone into it...

They had ‘landed’ in a clearing of sorts. The vegetation here was not as dense, and after a quick scan, Charles concluded that others had been through recently.

- “Maybe this is an entry point, and the same for everyone. See, the grass has been chopped here and here. And there’s a kind of trail leading from where we stand, but no marks leading to the spot...”

Indeed, there was a trail. It had been chopped through, and recently at that.

- “Shall we proceed ?”, Charles asked, pointing at the trail.

- “Wait a minute, man”, Bob interrupted. “I’m gonna try and see who’s ahead of us.”

He tapped his chest, where his shirt pocket would normally have been. After a moment of indecision, he asked :

- “I don’t suppose either of you would be carrying Ganja ?”

Louise and Charles looked at him, baffled.

- “Oh, never mind’, the Masaï warrior sighed...

He closed his eyes and tried to picture the clearing in his mind, only earlier... The image was blurry, but after a short while, he started sensing a presence. Several, in fact. They looked like mercenaries dressed for the jungle. They were heavily equipped, one of them seemed to have infrared goggles and all were carrying massive high-tech weaponry. There were five of them, apparently. Bob estimated that they had been through roughly an hour before.

- “They looked like these guys from that movie with Arnie, you know, what’s it called... The one in the jungle, with the hard-ass alien... Predator, that’s the one !”, Bob explained once he’d snapped out of his short trance.

Again, his companions looked baffled. Somehow, the fact that neither Louise not Charles appreciated Schwarzenegger’s particular kind of artistry didn’t come as a surprise.

- “Did you have a feeling of where they were heading ?”, Charles asked.

- “Errr... Nope. I need good Ganja to do that kind of stuff...”

- “I’ll try and see if there’s any visible landmark they could be aiming for...”, Louise said.

She closed her eyes and intoned a litany. Slowly, her body lifted until she was higher that the treetops. Then she opened her eyes. All around, for what seemed like infinity, there were the same tall trees. The only oddity in this monotonous ocean of green was a tall hill, with what looked like a Celtic circle of stones on top. Louise estimated the spot to be roughly 15 miles away, which could mean at least a day’s march in such dense forest...

She got back down and informed her companions. “Let’s get a move on”, she concluded. “the less time we spend in here, the better I’ll feel.”

They decided not to follow the trail left by their predecessors, feeling that the risk of stumbling upon them was too high. That meant, however, that Charles had to hack his way through, a thankless and tiring task. It also made their progress very slow.

Louise was getting increasingly uneasy, and she kept on urging Charles to go faster, until finally even he got fed up with her interventions. “If you want to go faster, either you pick up the machete”, he said, “or you find us a better way of getting there...”

Louise thought a bit, and then asked Bob and Charles to stand closer to her.

- “My pleasure, baby”, Bob answered.

Louise scowled, but she concentrated nonetheless, and once more intoned some obscure incantations. This time, the three of them slowly raised above the ground. It took a good minute to reach the treetops, and as Louise continued mumbling, a slow breeze picked up and pushed them in the general direction of the stone circle.

- “Can’t you make us go faster ?”, Charles asked candidly. “At this pace, we might as well walk...”

- “You wanna do it ?”, Louise muttered between her teeth. The three of them lost a little altitude as she was speaking...

- “No, no !” Charles replied emphatically, looking at the ground 25 meters below...

They continued for a while. It was frustrating, and unsettling as well. Charles kept thinking that there was a good case to be made for flying carpets. At least you didn’t see the ground below when you looked down...

A little later, Bob spotted a number of felled trees and scorched foliage a little ahead of them, roughly on the path from their entry point to the circle of stones. He signalled it to the others, and Louise landed them nearby. She looked fairly tired.

Bob and Charles quietly approached the area where some of the huge trees had fallen. The turmoil had caused a natural clearing of significant proportions, and the cause was soon explained : there, roughly twenty meters away from them, lied the corpse of a massive tyrannosaurus. Its reptilian skin shone with dark blood and it’s huge head was scorched to the bone. It grinned disconsolately, its death as unlikely as its very existence.

Bob and Charles, soon joined by a slightly refreshed Louise, stared in silence at the beast. The implications of what they were seeing slowly shrunk in, and they started glancing right and left, wondering if the creature’s mate or children were going to emerge from the trees anytime soon. Charles marvelled at the realism of the creature and had to check himself to remember that this was a virtual reality : the mad scientist in him was already wondering how they’d done it...

- “I’m very worried about whoever killed this thing...”, Louise said slowly. “Bob, can you try and see what happened ?”

- “Still no Ganja ?”, Bob replied.

Louise and Charles just stared at him angrily.

Bob sat down, legs crossed, and closed his eyes. A few minutes later, he emerged from his trance and described what he had seen :

- “It’s the same guys I spotted earlier. Minus one, that is. They have very good gear. Looks to me like napalm throwers or something. Would be in line with their Vietnam look, anyway...”

- “What do you mean, ‘minus one’ ?”

- “Well, one of them croaked it. Crushed by a snap of the tail...”

- “Did they take the body with them ?”

- “Nope. It... disappeared. Kinda. It was really weird : he was thrown into a tree by the force of the blow, and when he fell back on the ground, his whole body was briefly outlined with a sort of white mesh wire, and then he faded out...”

The three of them stared silently at the scene for a while longer. It was all a bit much to take in. Louise was the first to snap out of the dreadful reverie.

- “We’d better get going.”, she said. “I’m not staying here one minute longer than required, and there’s still a long way to go.”

- “How do we get there ?”, Bob asked.

- “We hover. Definitely.”, Charles immediately replied. “It may be slow, but it seems a lot safer than staying down here...”

For the third time in as many hours, Louise did her mumbo jumbo. She seemed a little bit more in control, this time, and both their ascent and their motion was faster. The circle of stones was getting closer...

[Ranko]

Thanks for the URL, I will check it as soon as I read your long post.


Oh, and curse on you; I am "stuck" running a Mage game soon :) And it feels oddly nice, as this is a game I secretly wanted to came back to. Time to bring out the good old overused 1st ed out of the cupboard. :)

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Ranko
Thanks for the URL, I will check it as soon as I read your long post.


Oh, and curse on you; I am "stuck" running a Mage game soon :) And it feels oddly nice, as this is a game I secretly wanted to came back to. Time to bring out the good old overused 1st ed out of the cupboard. :)

Being told that this narrative inspires others to pick up the game is about the best compliment I could imagine. Thanks very much !

Will you be setting your Mage game in Zagreb or defaulting to the US ? I imagine that there could be some interesting stuff to do with Eastern Europe in Mage...

[Kingleon]

Heh, for some reason I didn't manage to check back until today. Nice. That should hold me over until Saturday, when the Mage game starts up again and the monkey that is MtA addiction gets off my back. My character wil be giving a speach to the cabal about founding a chantry. Which is the last thing you'd expect from a Primordial Essence Dreamspeaker... Wish me luck. ;)

[Ranko]

I always play my WoD in Zagreb, as can be seen on the Nightling page in the sig (although a lot of work I did for Zagreb's Vampire is not there, yet). I iked to play around with the Slavic roots, add a distinct flavour, abuse my love for Ars Magica (originally Coeris was set up in Dalmatia), and add a bit of grusome mass graves from the recent war.

As for the game, I have a few snags as some of my regular crew are not up for Mage (Exalted being our recent hit game), but I think I will make a few of them play a short story.

[Sammael99]

Kingleon,

Originally posted by Kingleon
My character wil be giving a speach to the cabal about founding a chantry. Which is the last thing you'd expect from a Primordial Essence Dreamspeaker... Wish me luck. ;)

Good luck ! Doing the unexpected is a big part of Mage anyway !

Stupid question Kingleon : is there any particular reason you're unregistered ? I'm just curious, I guess...


Ranko,

Originally posted by Ranko
I always play my WoD in Zagreb, as can be seen on the Nightling page in the sig (although a lot of work I did for Zagreb's Vampire is not there, yet). I iked to play around with the Slavic roots, add a distinct flavour, abuse my love for Ars Magica (originally Coeris was set up in Dalmatia), and add a bit of grusome mass graves from the recent war.

The interesting thing about contemporary games is that, provided they are easily moveable geographically, you can really make them feel 'up close and personal' to the players. The only game I can't see outside the US us Unknown Armies. That particular brand of post-modernism is just so American it wouldn't work elsewhere...

Oh, and I take the opportunity to thank you for your offer of a website, but I don't want it badly enough right now. If I find an artist willing to illustrate it, maybe I'll reconsider ;)

Next update fairly soon, it's half-written already !

[Kingleon]

Not particularly. I don't post alot, and if I register, I probably would be. Also, my computer is notorious when it comes to cookies... I'd probably have to be signing in all the time.

[Thor Olavsrud]

Hi Sammael,

Just wanted to pop in and say this story log has been a real treat so far. It sure takes me back. The Mage chronicle I ran was one of the very best I've been involved with.

As I was typing this, I realized that was about seven years ago. It feels like just yesterday! Anybody seen a guy in a wrinkled white suit?

[Ranko]

Well, to tell the truth, I keep running WoD (mainly) in Zagreb because of the first Vampire game I ran. it took place here, as I knew the city, and several cool (latter on keystone) character grew from the few sessions we played.

Then i prepared a few chronicles more and more fleshed out, and more I learned about my hometown :) My favourite addition is a non existant statue of a glass gargoyle crouching in the middle of a black steel pyramid cut in half; he is standing on the base, and holding the top on his wings & shoulders - right in front of the (at the time of creation) new Sheraton hotel. I don't know why, but it is still a cool statue idea for me, and it stuck.

Then I found out about the underground tunnels, both the WWII era, and the alleged older ones existing beneth the old citys. Possibly connecting Kaptol (church twen) and Gradec (free town) - and they were connected (during the 13th century +) only by a Blood Bridge, called that because of the numerous fights between the priests and the merchants :) .

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Thor Olavsrud
Hi Sammael,

Just wanted to pop in and say this story log has been a real treat so far. It sure takes me back. The Mage chronicle I ran was one of the very best I've been involved with.

As I was typing this, I realized that was about seven years ago. It feels like just yesterday! Anybody seen a guy in a wrinkled white suit?

Thanks Thor !

At least you have a screenname that'll be easy to use and fun to integrate once we resume play ;)

I'm still wondering if we haven't heard about Lord Triky because he disliked being a slimy shadow demon...

[Ubermonkey]

Hey Sammael, sounding good. Hoep the next update comes soon.

[Sammael99]

This time, it felt more like moving as fast as a running horse. Just as frightening, but nowhere near as frustrating. Louise even looked like she was enjoying herself, although she’d never have admitted that...

They were definitely making progress now, and it started to look as if they’d be reaching the circle in less than half an hour. That was until Bob spotted a number of circling black dots in the sky...

- “What do you think that is ?”, he said, pointing in the direction of the tiny moving specks.

- “I don’t know...”, Charles said. “Some kind of birds ?”

None of them wanted to imagine what kind of bird could populate this virtual jungle nightmare. Unfortunately they had to face to the fact faster than they had planned. The dots stopped circling and started moving in their direction, growing larger in the process...

- “Some kind of big birds...”, Charles said a few minutes later...

He clutched his weird piece of metal, and concentrated. First, there was a dark shimmering above his free hand, which slowly coalesced in a curved bar of metal. Slowly, its shape refined until finally he was holding in his fist a crude sabre. Then Charles looked up and nearly dropped his newly designed weapon...

The ‘birds’ were huge. Their wingspan was probably four or five meters wide, and their wingbones ended in sharp claws. They had long, serrated beaks that drooled saliva, presumably in the anticipation of a tasty meal.

- “They’re... they’re...”, Charles blabbered, wracking his brain for the correct name. “...PTERODACTYLS !”, he finally yelled.

He gripped his new sword as the leading flying reptile swooped in, and tried to slash at one of its wings. He failed miserably, and billows of stench-filled mist rolled past the three of them.

Bob just stared, aghast. Louise decided that is was time for decisive action :

- “Hang on tight, I’m bringing us down !”, she said.

- “Hang on to what ?”, Bob yelled...

The three mages slowly tumbled down in the thick foliage, and heard sharp cries of frustration from the Pterodactyls above. Louise managed to ‘land’ them with only a few scratches...

- “Well, I guess going by foot may be the safest solution after all...”, Charles suggested after catching his breath.

- “You won’t get any contradiction from me...’, Bob added.

- “I think you’re right.”, Louise concluded. “Man, I hate this place...”

They resumed their earlier walk, Charles chopping his way through the foliage with his machete. They had only walked for a few hundred meters when there was a loud crack in the distance behind them, as if a very large branch, or perhaps a tree trunk, had just snapped. Then a series of noises, grunts, shuffling. It was definitely getting closer.

- “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck !”, Bob yelled.

- “Shut up, you moron !”, Louise snapped.

At this point, the three mages noticed an odd animal smell that seemed to quickly increase in pungency. The noises and grunts were getting much, much louder. Charles quickly climbed up on a branch, trying to spot the source of the noise. When he did, the blood drained from his face :

It was a boar. A huge boar. Someone’s sick idea of what a prehistoric boar must have looked like. At shoulder height, it was as tall as a tall man, with thick grey bristly fur and tusks the size of large scimitars. They looked like they could cut you up real good, too. The beast’s small, porcine eyes seemed to be looking for its quarry, but its large snout had definitely picked up the scent...

“Get up the trees, quick !” Charles yelled. He tried to climb higher on the trunk he was already installed in. Louise and Bob scrambled for cover. Charles threw the sword he had built earlier on the ground in front of Bob so that the Ecstatic would have a decent weapon. He clutched his machete and trusted that Louise’s arcane talents would protect her if necessary.

The heavy beast crashed through the trees and its eyes finally locked on the taller moving silhouette. Its slow animal memory associated such dark, black-haired figures with long sticks prickling its sides, little people surrounding it and yelling, nets and traps. A primeval anger came over it. It charged...

Bob had just managed to jump up a tree when the boar rammed the trunk just under him with its forehead. Fortunately, it was a large tree. He managed to grab a branch with one arm and avoided being thrown off. He dangled there while the beast started to push the trunk with its shoulder. It snarled and grunted with the effort.

Suddenly, a large lump of lead appeared out of thin air about five meters above the creature. It fell straight on its back, and the creature stopped in its tracks, stunned.

Charles, still standing up his tree, grinned. The boar shook his head, roared, and resumed thrashing Bob’s hideout. Charles stopped grinning.

Bob had taken the opportunity to steady his grip on the trunk and branches. He managed to free his right hand which, conveniently enough was currently carrying Charles’ conjured sabre. He slashed down at the boar’s head... and failed miserably. It wasn’t quite as easy as in all those pirate movies...

Louise was at a loss what to do. She tried to focus static energy on the boar and electrocute it, but she’d never actually performed that particular trick. It failed.

The boar slammed hard into the trunk Bob was using as protection, and this time the violence of the shock threw him off. He fell just in front of the beast, and before he had even hit the ground, it gored him with a mighty blow of one of its tusks. About the same time, a second, slightly bigger block of lead fell on the boar’s head, stunning him again.

Louise was very, very annoyed by now. She concentrated and focused her anger on the situation at hand, aiming to fire lightning at the creature. She made sure she pronounced her incantation clearly, and this time it worked : suddenly the boar was surrounded by a blue flash. It twitched several times, and then there was an odd blurry ripple that spread away from it. When the ripple passed through our three virtual heroes, they felt an odd sensation, not unlike the one they had experienced when Louise had ripped the golden card earlier. For a second, their image fragmented and pixelised, and then everything went back to normal.

The boar, however, had had enough. There was definitely too much weird stuff going on, and it felt pains and twitches in every muscle. It turned around and trotted away, grunting disconsolately.

Bob was sprawled on the ground, bleeding. Charles checked him up while Louise was catching her breath. The cut was not as deep as he had feared, and Bob's ribs didn't seem to be cracked, but they had nothing to bandage him with.

- “Move along”, Louise snapped. “I’ll try to see what I can do...”

She lay her hands on Bob’s side and closed her eyes. Ever so slowly, the bleeding stopped. The wound was still sore, but it looked a little less horrible.

- “That felt good baby !”, Bob whispered, managing a smile.

Louise slapped him, and turned around.

- “Time to go.”, she said. “I’ve had enough of this crap ! I’m flying us there, and it’d better be over quickly !”

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Ubergringo
Hey Sammael, sounding good. Hoep the next update comes soon.

See above !

When's yours coming up, then ?

:D

[Gez]

It seems all I need to get updates to story hours I follow is to stop following them for a few months... :)

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Gez
It seems all I need to get updates to story hours I follow is to stop following them for a few months... :)

Yeah...

Buy who bumps the thread in the meantime ? Thank Planck's Constant, Kingleon was there !!!

(Glad to see you registered, Kingleon, BTW. Check you PMs if you haven't done so already !)

[Sammael99]

Was it Louise’s anger, or just that she finally got the hang of it ? Whatever the reason, they could now be said to be flying. The circle of stones was getting closer, perched on a large hill devoid of vegetation. After a few minutes, they started distinguishing details, and Charles soon spotted a commando of four people dressed in military outfits crouched by the side of the hill.

- "I guess that’s the guys we were following down there. For some reason I doubt if they’re here for peaceful reasons."

- "Do you think they want to whack Pi out ?", Bob asked.

- "Presuming Pi has indeed led us on this merry chase to meet up with him, I'd say that's likely. I'm starting to think the circle of stones is not innocent, considering the relationship between Pi and the circle…", Louise pointed.

- "What's Pi got to do with Circles ?", Bob asked, bewildered…

- "I didn't realise you had missed elementary school as well…", Louise responded dryly.

- "Look !", Charles interrupted. "There's a silhouette up there !"

Indeed, there was a man dressed in a black trenchcoat sitting against one of the large stones. He seemed to be staring at a luminous flat object on his lap.

In order to avoid being seen by either the commando at the bottom of the hill or the man on top, Louise manoeuvred around the hill, flying low. She landed them opposite the direction they had come from originally and they started climbing up the hill.

Bob reached the top first. The dark silhouette was still leisurely seated against a menhir. It was Pi. He looked up, saw Bob, smiled and stood up.

That's when a rain of bullets erupted from the opposite direction. Pi fell like a stone, and Bob yelled "Techno bastards !" as a bullet went clean through his arm. He plunged to the ground and warned the others. Charles and Louise followed suit.

Louise started crawling towards Pi while Charles looked disconsolately at his machete. It wouldn't be much use against bullets… Bob had dropped his sabre when he was shot and was just clutching his arm, gritting his teeth and staring at the crimson flow of blood between his fingers.

On the opposite side of the hill, the four members of the commando were also crouched. Only the muzzles of their machine guns were apparent. A large, heavy chunk of metal suddenly appeared above them, but it fell harmlessly on the ground next to one of them. Charles cursed.

Louise reached Pi. He was breathing hard. A bullet had caught him in the belly. Louise muttered a few sentences and touched the wound. The blood flow lessened a bit. Louise had the odd sensation that her Life magic was a lot more efficient on Pi than it had been on Bob earlier. She didn't have much time to ponder why, though…

The commando stood up as one and resumed their submachine gun fire. Chips of stone were flying every time a bullet hit one of the menhirs, and both Charles and Bob, who weren't quite protected, felt or heard bullets buzzing very close to where they were lying.

That's when Louise lost it.

- "STOP IT !" she yelled, and started chanting from the top of her lungs, doing wild gestures with her arms and hands, only barely protected by the menhir she and Pi were hiding behind. Despite the pain, Pi suddenly realised what Louise was trying to do.

- "NO !", he said, as loud as he could manage. But it was too late.

From Louise's hands, a streak of white lightning erupted in the direction of the four members of the commando. It forked out and struck all four of them. Their silhouettes were suddenly outlined in tron-like light wire. Then they collapsed to the ground and vanished. Things didn't stop there, however. From the point of impact, with a terrible crunch that sounded like radio noise turned way up, a ripple began to spread. It looked not unlike a wave of hot air, distorting sight and generating smaller ripples in its wake. Everything the ripple touched was outlined as the technocratic commando has been. Bob was the first touched and he yelled in pain. All the hair on his body suddenly stood up. Pi muttered a few words, and when the ripple hit them, it had no effect on his or Louise.

Charles however, was not so lucky. He jumped in pain when the ripple reached him, and his silhouette was also luminously outlined before he vanished.

A sudden silence.

Then the sound of the nearby jungle resumed. Bob stood up. He looked like he'd been burned in a car accident, but obviously didn't feel quite as bad as he looked. He turned to a stunned Louise :

- "Whoo Baby ! You can sure rock when you want to !"

- "Where are they all gone ?", Louise asked, somewhat dazed.

- "Violently de-rezzed. This whole place is made of 0s and 1s, you know. It relies on electricity a lot. If you use the Sphere of Forces indiscriminately, you generate a Whiteout…"

- "But they were trying to kill you", Louise pleaded.

- "Good point. Thanks. I just hope you didn't fry Charles' brain…"

- "WHAT ?"

- "What do you think happened to these guys ?", he pointed towards where the technocrat commando had come from. "Their brain was wired to this place through a VR helmet, and you just pumped a few thousand volts through it".

- "You mean I… I… killed Charles ?"

- "Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. I'm thinking it's unlikely, considering our friend Bob here didn't even get de-rezzed. But you never know."

Louise slumped, too shocked to speak. Bob, however, took over, his light-hearted tone gone for now :

- "So, man, you got us here, one of us may have been bumped off by the bastard technos… I'm just wondering, why, you know ?"

- "Well, I'm sorry about whatever happened, I thought this would be a lot more light-hearted and enlightening for you guys… But I did get you here for a serious reason : As I promised to Louise, I did quite a bit of investigating concerning 'the fourth man', the guy who awakened in the subway explosion and got nabbed by the technos before I managed to rescue him as I rescued you three…"

- "So what about him ?"

- "I don't exactly know, but it's pretty obvious there is something important about him : in the course of investigating, I found some stuff, good stuff, but they found about me too… It soon became obvious that I'd better go away for a while. So I set up this meeting so I could tell you what I know… I didn't think they'd trace me so quick. I'm gonna have to on the run again fairly soon…"

- "Can't they find your body ? Where you're surfing from, you know ?"

- "My meat, you mean ? Nope. I keep it with me at all times…"

Bob was about to query exactly what that meant, but Louise interjected. She sounded very angry and very bitter.

- "Well let's not make this too long then. What do you have to tell us and how do we get the hell out of here ?"

- "OK. Here's what I know. The man was taken in by the Technocracy. No definite clue as to which faction, but I do know that he ended up in a test lab, so one could easily imagine the Progenitors being behind this. Apparently, he refused to co-operate and the technos started to think he was going to die. I don't quite know why that is. Anyway, they seem to have put him in a stasis machine in a laboratory North of Paris. I know where, but I also know there's no chance of anyone getting in there without some preparation. When the time is right, I'll get in contact with you and tell you exactly where it is and how you can get in. You'll have to act quickly and raid the place to rescue him. A bit of discreet preparation wouldn't be useless either…"

- "Is that it ?", Louise snapped.

- "Errr… yes…", Pi replied.

- "How do we get out ?"

- "Easy ! There's a switch at the back of your helmets. If you concentrate on your meat, and put your hand on your neck, you should feel it. You flip it, and you're out."

Louise vanished. Bob looked at Pi and said :

- "Good luck, man. Don't let them roast your ass."

- "Thanks. I won't. They're not clever enough. I'll be in touch. Look after Louise, she seems shaken."

Bob vanished.

Or rather, Bob, a few seconds after Louise, shook his head, flipped the visor of his VR helmet and looked around. There was Charles, lying on the floor, moaning. His nose was bleeding profusely.

Louise was already standing by his side.

- "He's gonna be OK", she said to Bob. "Just a minor concussion." She sounded relieved, but her level of anxiety didn't seem to have faded.

- "How do you know ?", Bob asked.

- "Stop asking stupid questions ! I just know…"

Indeed, Charles came around a few seconds later. He sat up, his nose dripping blood.

- "Owwww. My head hurts…"

- "It's OK", Louise said. She wiped his face with one of Keltos' blankets. "I'll help you. We need to get the hell out of here, quick !"

- "We're OK here !", Bob interjected. "It's safe !"

- "No it's not ! The Technocracy is probably looking all over the place for us !"

- "Hey, chill out girl, they won't find us here ! I've been staying here for weeks with Keltos and it's a safe place !"

- "Chill out ?! CHILL OUT ?!", Louise yelled. "I just killed four Technocracy guys because of all this shit that's happening and because of that goddamned Pi, and you're asking me to chill out ?"

- "Aw, come on, they were gonna kill Pi anyway, they were bad guys !"

- "I don't know who are the good guys and the bad guys here. What I DO know is that if you have no qualms about four men dying, then maybe you're not a good guy."

Bob was too stunned to reply. Louise helped Charles up and led him through the door of Keltos' flat. Just as the door was closing, Charles turned back towards Bob and shrugged…

[Sammael99]

BTW, I compiled a word document of the story so far. It needs a few revisions, but if anyone is interested at this point, I'd gladly pass it over. PM me if you want it.

It's 41 pages long and weighs 203 Ko unzipped.

[Kingleon]

Cool... thanks, dude.

No thanks on the word doc, though. That'd be tricky at the moment to upload.

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Kingleon
Cool... thanks, dude.

No thanks on the word doc, though. That'd be tricky at the moment to upload.

I'm not sure I was absolutely clear on this. What I should have said was :

For those of you who'd rather read it in a paper format than on the boards, I have a word file available. If you PM me your e-mail address, I'll gladly send it over.

Now, that's better.

:)

[Kingleon]

Heh, okay.

[Sammael99]

This sequence is the last stuff we played before the so-called « new birth » break in the game. Before I go into the seekings themselves, there are a number of points I need to mention so that the reader/roleplayer may ‘decode’ the seekings more easily. Seekings is one aspect of Mage that is really hard to ‘get right’, and I’m not sure that’s what I’m doing, to be honest, but at least potential Mage GMs will be able to see how I did it and judge for themselves.

First of all, an element of context : I deliberately capped the beginning characters at Arete 2. According to 2nd Ed. Rules (which I mostly follow) this leaves them with very low dicepools with which to work effects, and limited powers, but that’s how I wanted it. Mainly, the idea was that I wanted them to not be able to rely on Magic(k) to overcome every obstacle in the game.

Experience showed me that players whose characters have a wide range of reliable powers from the get go tend to stop thinking real quick about how to resolve situations using mundane abilities. I call it the D&D syndrome, because that’s mostly why every encounter in D&D ends up with a fight (IMO). If you want to theorise, let’s say that the more power the character has, the less the player uses his brain ! Additionally, starting them at Arete 2 forced them to explore their (somewhat limited) range of powers to its fullest and I believe it helped them get a better grasp of what the Spheres did and when they could be used.

The second point I need to mention is how I decided to run seekings. This is not exactly canon and mostly inspired by various postings on rpg.net and comments in the excellent Mage Storyteller’s Guide. Basically, the seeking is played by me and the player or, potentially, me and other players playing their own roles or secondary characters (this wasn’t the case here). The seeking is meant to demonstrate something to the character, but may end up demonstrating something entirely different, but equally worthwhile. In order to take that into account, my judgement on whether the seeking is a pass or a fail is based not only on what happens in the seeking but on an interpretation I ask of the player as to how the seeking affected his character. I expect my players to take this into account when they roleplay their characters post-seeking.

Finally, in order to free myself of the guilt of making a player fail, I don’t put an xp cost to Arete. A seeking happens when I feel the character is ready or (maybe later on) when the player feels his character is ready. That way, if it’s a failure, there’s no character development penalty apart from the obvious fact that your Arete doesn’t increase.

So, with all that in mind, the seekings below will be presented in the following format :

Stumbling Block : Here I, as a GM, will detail to the reader what I perceived to be a ‘stumbling block’, a ‘weakness’, a ‘lesson to be learned’ from the point of view of the Avatar.

Seeking : Here I will narrate the seeking in character.

Interpretation : Here I will detail the player’s interpretation of his character’s seeking.

Evaluation : Here I will specify how I adjudicated on whether the seeking was a success or a failure.

[Sammael99]

Bob Martin (played by Matthieu)

Stumbling Block : Bob, so far, is essentially a ‘shallow’ mage. He thinks it’s cool to have powers, but has never question the deeper meaning of things. He suffers from a common misconception of his tradition’s philosophy, which is that the pursuit of pleasure is an end in itself, and not a tool to perform greater things. His avatar, despite being dynamic, would like to teach him that he needs to question why he seeks pleasures and why he does magic, not just do them because he can. However, typically for a dynamic avatar, it does not demonstrate, it prods and lets Bob make the right (or wrong) choices.

Seeking :

Bob had smoked some very good weed. Keltos really had a knack for finding (or growing) the best stuff. Sitting on the roof of the building where Keltos lived and he kipped, and despite the chilly winter wind, Bob was feeling great. In fact, once he closed his eyes, he quickly realised that he didn’t feel the cold anymore. If anything, he felt warm... Aaaah, the wonders of the weed...

He opened his eyes when he realised that there were loud voices all around him. He was sitting in a low, brick red building that looked like some sort of middle-eastern tea house. There were carpets with intricate patterns blocking the heat from the windows, and the air was dry and hot. Sitting in front of him, were his good friends and fellow mystics Gupta and Hakim. Hakim, clearly an Arab, was discussing his latest trip to the bathhouse...

- “You remember this white skinned harlot they had last time ? The one with the yellow hair who pleased us so ? Well, this new one, she’s even better. I swear that when I climaxed, and this lasted at least an hour, mind you, I exploded in a feeling of oneness with the world. I could see the whole city from high above, and I felt so connected, it was great. I’m thinking of going out today, you wanna come with me ?”

Gupta had darker skin than Hakim, and hailed from the faraway lands of the Sultan of India, beyond even the Persian lands. From the expression on his face, it was obvious that he disapproved of Hakim’s enthusiasm.

- “What is the matter, Gupta ?”, Bob heard himself ask. His voice was his own, and yet different. He understood the language he was speaking as if it was the one he had been raised with, and yet he also knew that he had never spoken, or understood, this language.

- “Nothing. My views on Hakim’s debauchery are well known and there is little point in going over them yet again...”

- “Pardon me if I insist”, Bob heard himself reply, “but I thought you hailed from India, a land where our brethren have developed magical techniques based on sexual intercourse. Is that not so ?”

- “The debauchery that I speak of is not in the act of intercourse, nor even in the unwilling partner with whom it was performed. The debauchery is in the end, not the means. I was taught, and indeed espouse the view, that any pleasure we may pursue aim at attaining a state of being in which we may be more discerning of the world around us and its threads. In this state, we may perform wonderful feats of magic. We may also trigger experiences that help us on the path of enlightenment.”

- “Well that is exactly what I was doing !”, Hakim objected, a harsh tone in his voice.

- “Superficially, it may seem so. However, your depiction of the experience seems to show that you revel in the sensation, with little consideration for the potential for enlightenment. That is not my way.”

There was an uneasy silence.

- “Gupta”, Bob heard himself say, “I am curious to know which methods you practice to reach this particular state of mind in which our magic can be performed.”

- “Well, the pursuit of the pleasures of the flesh is one of them, although unlike our friend Hakim, I try to do it with partners willing and clean. But there are many other ways, some involving the pleasures of the mouth, of wine or hashish, and some involving meditation or ritual dancing. I have learned much from the dervish community I frequented during the months I stayed in the desert.”

- “So what’s the difference ?”, Hakim asked, rather heatedly. “You judge me because I use methods other than yours, and at the same time you insist that the methods don’t matter. It’s preposterous !”

- “First of all, Hakim, I do not judge you. I do not espouse the Prophet’s faith, and therefore I don’t believe that Allah will either, but you may believe that. In that case, this is between you and Allah. However, I disapprove of the pursuit of pleasure for no reason other than the pursuit of pleasure itself. You may have heard of the ancient Greek cult of Dyonisos that is often mentioned in relation with our teachings. This cult revelled in orgies of immense magnitude and, it is said, performed powerful magics. They also died of their own lack of meaning...”

Hakim did not look happy, and was indeed about to leave when Bob heard his own voice again :

- “Hakim, I am trying to understand your own point of view. Can you tell me how you feel about this issue ?”

- “The first thing I feel strongly about is that the enlightened should be left to decide on their own which path to follow. Obviously, I do not believe that my way is less worthy than Gupta’s, but unlike him, I don’t judge his way. He does as he must, and so do I. That being said, I do not believe that pleasure for itself serves no purpose. In my experience, the only true way of destroying our own self-imposed limitations is to loose ourselves. And by only pursuing pleasure for specific purposes, it is my belief that we cannot totally disconnect mind and body. For that, we need some amount of nonchalance, if you will. Which is why I will now resume what I should have started half an hour ago, that is kissing the delicate breasts of my red-headed harlot and leaving Gupta to frown at everything I do. Will you join me ?”

- “Let me think about it...”

The image blurred, and suddenly Bob felt the chill again. He quickly stood up and climbed down on the balcony below. He was unusually pensive, that night...

Interpretation : Matthieu interpreted this roughly the way I thought he would. He said that so far, Bob had been as a child that had been given a new toy, but had never thought of his toy as a tool. He said that the vision would probably trigger a gradual introspection, and a tendency in Bob to question the aims and ends of his actions rather than a simple ‘mindless’ pursuit of pleasure.

Evaluation : I was happy with the interpretation. This was indeed what Bob’s dynamic Avatar wanted to provoke. I enjoyed the fact that the player didn’t wholesale decide to change his character’s behaviour but rather point out that he would most likely change gradually. We’ll see over the next few sessions how true this has become !

[Buffalo]

This is some amazing stuff. How you are producing it with the time sink of a new offspring, is beyond me.

Best of luck with all products of your creativity.

Buffalo

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Buffalo
This is some amazing stuff. How you are producing it with the time sink of a new offspring, is beyond me.

Best of luck with all products of your creativity.

Buffalo

Thanks Buffalo !

It's the support that keeps me going !

As a more effective thank you (hopefully), let me post another Seeking in a minute...

[Sammael99]

Charles Seltibus (played by Thomas)

Stumbling Block : Charles’ Son of Ether character is obsessed with finding a molecule/substance that could extend one’s lifespan. He’s also obsessed with the death-rate of his lab rabbits and mentions them often in-game. The player hasn’t been particularly reticent to join the rest of the group when stuff needed to be done, but the character had the potential in him to evolve into a “no world outside my lab” type character. His Questing Avatar wanted to show to him that his magic could and should be used to help others rather than to pursue scientific research.

Seeking :

Charles had arrived at the lab early that morning, but he soon noticed there was something unusual happening on his workbench : several rabbits were obviously scurrying around there cages, something that never ever happened in the morning. At most, live rabbits from the previous day’s batch would be whining in the last hours of agony, and that would already be considered an exceptional success by Charles.

Charles threw his coat on a desk, and ran towards the cages. There they were : three out of fifteen rabbits, healthy as the day before they were injected with one of Charles hundreds of test substances. Charles feverishly went for the log where he recorded each and every rabbit manipulation, but then he calmed down a little and the scientist in him reasserted his feeble grip for a few minutes. Like every other morning, Charles cleaned the cages full of dead rabbits and burned their carcasses in the positron incinerator designed by his boss.

Then he opened the log again, studied it, and started running series of tests on the rabbits. His workbench was right next to a large window that allowed him a full view on the street. His boss had cleverly modified the glass (through a technique he dubbed VM² for ‘viral molecular mutation’) so that it was perfectly clear from the inside and totally opaque from the outside without looking like tainted glass. It was a pleasure working in such a bright lab, and although the suburban street he overlooked presented little in the way of scenery, at least it didn’t distract him from his work either.

Except this morning... About half an hour after Charles had started working, he heard a sharp cry outside his window. He looked up, annoyed, and noticed that an old woman had just fallen on the sidewalk, pushed by two nasty looking policemen. She was clutching her ankle and weeping, whether from the pain or the humiliation. Her shopping was strewn all over the pavement.. The coppers moved on. Charles went back to studying. Someone out in the street would help her, he thought.

About twenty minutes later, he was disturbed again. There was a man yelling outside. He checked outside, and saw a man, probably a junkie, holding a gun to several people waiting for a bus. He was pointing the gun nervously and looked unhinged enough to use it. Charles hesitated for half a second, but finally stood up and, reluctantly at first, he ran through his company lobby, yelled at the secretary to call the police and emerged in the street. He walked to the bus stop and immediately called the young man.

- “Come on”, he said in a calm and (hopefully) strong voice. “This isn’t going to help you at all...”

The armed man turned round and pointing the gun towards Charles’ head, he yelled at him :

- “Who are you, fucker ! Shut the fuck up ! I’m gonna blow your head off !”

Reflecting that he could use his mastery of Entropy to jam the gun, Charles calmly checked that his probability calculator mobile phone was in his hand, extended the other hand in a gesture of peace :

- “Look”, he said, you have nothing to gain with this. You’d be much better off being taken care of by competent people. If you kill someone, do you really think you’ll feel better in jail ?”

The young man’s countenance was breaking. He was so expecting the panicked looks of the people he pointed his gun to that Charles preternatural calm shook him bad. He started trembling. Slowly, Charles moved forward and delicately picked the gun from the man’s hand. He could now see, on his arms, the blue mark of needle holes. The drug-addict then broke up in tears and fell to his knees, clutching Charles legs like a small child holds his mother. Charles patted him on the head awkwardly, trying to sooth him with words while the passers-by and potential victims of the young lunatic looked at him admiringly.

He was pulled out of his reverie by the arrival in the station of the RER. Charles stood on the platform, startled. It had seemed so real, so significant... He played the scene again in his head, feeling a pang of disappointment that the breakthrough in his research had been nothing but a daydream. He had the odd feeling that there was a lesson or two to be gleaned from this reverie, though...

Interpretation : Interestingly enough, Thomas didn’t interpret the seeking in the way I had intended it, but he made some very good points I hadn’t thought of. Basically, his analysis was that he wouldn’t normally have acted so coolly (I should point out that the player didn’t know that a seeking could be ‘not real’, so his reaction wasn’t fake in any way.), and that probably, he was excessively confident in his capacity to affect the world with Magic.

Evaluation : Even though Charles didn’t interpret the seeking as a sign to ‘get out of the lab and into the real world’, that’s effectively what he did, and he put his life at risk too in order to help strangers. That would have been good enough for me, but the additional interpretation that Thomas made was the icing on the cake : he had been getting a little too cocky about his powers being reliable, so I deemed the seeking passed, and he went up to Arete 3.

[Buffalo]

Beautiful.
What I would not have given for labs with windows, in my other life as a lab rat. I knew a man who turned down a hefty promotion because it would have meant his new lab would not have a window. Most do not. One friend worked in a lab with a breakaway wall, to minimize property damage in case of explosions--but no window.

Nowadays I just soak up the view into the national forest opposite our dinky trailer. And I think my outlook is less inward too.

Buffalo

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Buffalo
Beautiful.


Thanks, Buffalo !

Seems I doing this for you only, these days, so here you are ;)

The following seeking is my favourite of the three, but I guess it's partly because it touches on some of my specific interests. Enjoy !

[Sammael99]

Louise Vidal-Naqué (played by Anne)


Stumbling Block : Now that she has awakened, Louise lives with a constant contradiction of personality. She strives to remain the rational, atheist woman that she always was, and yet, the new reality that her eyes have opened to show her everyday that such a rational outlook is either a self-delusion or a deliberate lie (as with the Technocracy’s Propaganda). Ever since her awakening, she has dodged the issue, and reconstructed her worldview in a safe yet false way. Her avatar believes that she cannot grow as a Mage until she has confronted this contradiction. The intent here is to jar her into a reaction.

Seeking :

Ever since their return from the Virtual Jungle and their meeting with Pi, Louise had avoided Charles and particularly Bob. She still had this odd longing to be around them, but she resisted it. Her habit of going on long walks in the streets of Paris to clear her mind increased, except it didn’t seem to clear her mind much.

On one such afternoon, she was walking in the pedestrian streets of the latin quarter. It was raining slightly and there weren’t many people about. Louise didn’t mind getting her hair wet. She had noticed that she was much less susceptible to colds ever since she’d awakened, and the sensation of cold water on her face was distracting her from the turmoil in her mind. She had probably killed, for the first time in her life. And she had de facto, chosen sides when she didn’t truly want to. Those two facts kept coming back to the surface.

She turned into one of those narrow cobbled alleys that give American tourists the sense of history they desperately lack at home (XX). She’d never explored this particular alley and was curious to know where it led. About fifty meters down the alley was a small roman chapel with a narrow staircase. Louise noticed a strange looking silhouette seated on one of the metal railings. She approached cautiously. The figure turned towards her.

Louise’s breath died in her lungs. The figure was made of soft white light, its features nearly invisible. Its build was that of a ten year old boy, it looked as if was naked. From its back, two large wings sprouted, and the delicate feathers glistened in the rain.

Legs wobbling, Louise moved forward. She didn’t look at the figure in the eyes. She sat on the stairs uneasily, trying to pretend she had seen nothing. She went through her purse, looking for a kleenex to wipe her brow with, but her trembling hands betrayed her, and dropped her lipstick. As she was leaning forward to pick it up, the white figure grabbed it, and handed it to her. Louise hesitated a second, then took the purple tube and looked up straight in the creatures’ eyes. A delicate smell of honey wafted to her nostrils.

- “I don’t believe this”, she said.

- “Do you really ? Or do you not want to believe it ?”, the luminescent figure questioned.

- “Is there a difference ?”, Louise snapped.

The creature chuckled.

- “I certainly think there is... In the last few months, you have bent reality to your will, you have seen wonders that would make most rational men go insane... Is accepting the reality of Angels really that hard ?”

- “So that’s what you are. An Angel.”

- “What do you think ?”

- “I guess this pretty much settles the issue of the existence of God...”, Louise continued.

The Angel remained silent.

- “Do you work directly for that bastard ?”

- “Do you know him personally ? Because if you don’t, that’s pretty severe character assassination you’re making there...”

- “Look, I have tried to open people’s eyes at the abuses and crimes of the Church most all my life, so you can figure my opinion of Him isn’t exactly flattering !”

- “I will concede that His choices of mortal agents have not always been ideal. But it seems to me you are judging the Almighty through his Church...”

- “Are you saying that’s not how He is ?”

- “If by that you mean ‘is He different from his representation by Monotheistic religions ?’, then the answer certainly is ‘Yes’. I’m not sure this is exactly what you want to hear, however...”

- “This is so frustrating !”, Louise yelled. “You speak like a two-bit theologian ! You don’t give any straight answers. Soon you’ll be blabbering about ‘impenetrable ways’...”

- “Sorry. I realise this must be traumatic for you. Ask me any question, and I’ll try to answer it as clearly as I can.”

- “Why are you here ?”

- “You mean, here, on Earth ?”

Louise nodded.

- “I was sent to do His bidding, a long time ago, and I stayed around. Not that I had much choice, mind you...”

- “What does that mean ?”

- “Being sent by the Almighty to do His bidding is the greatest honour, and the greatest tragedy for one of the Cherubim. On the one hand, He only chooses those of adequate worth and resilience. On the other hand, you can never go back...”

- “Go back... to Heaven ?”

- “Oh, no, no... Heaven and Hell are physical places. Or were... I’m not sure what they are exactly these days. But where Angels dwell... That is a different matter. A realm of perfect essence. I think it was Plato who captured the concept the best, and he wasn’t Christian.”

The Angel stopped talking for a second, and then murmured : “That may explain why, actually...”.

- “Anyway”, it resumed. “They call it the Silver City. A place outside reality, a place of beauty, harmony, perfection, where only the innocent may abide. And they say that innocence, once lost, can never be regained...”

There was a heavy silence. Louise broke it abruptly :

- “Well pardon me if I don’t feel sorry for you...”

- “I didn’t expect you to...” A vague smile could be discerned on The Angel’s indistinct features... “Next question ?”

- “If you have done what he sent you to do, what do you do now ?”

- “Apart from hanging around, you mean ? Well, I guess you could say I do His work in a less specific way.”

- “You interpret His will and act accordingly.”

- “I suppose.”

- “So how are you more reliable than the Church you decry ?”

- “A very good question. For a few millennia, I figured that, Angels being perfect, the point was moot. Now, I suspect the answer is, ‘I’m not’.”

- “At least, that was frank”, Louise conceded. “What’s your name ?”

- “Ahh. Now I recognise the Hermetic in you. It’s not that I don’t trust you, Louise, but you well imagine that I can’t allow any mortal such dominion over me. Know simply that mortals have called me ‘Lelahel’. As for my True Name, you’ll have to find it for yourself if you really want to know it.”

- “Next you’re going to tell me there are Demons around ?”

- “Of course there are. You wanna meet one ?”

Despite herself, Louise was shocked.

- “You frequent Demons ?”

- “Well, you know what they say about field operatives, knowing your enemy and all that...”

Louise just stared at Lelahel, dumbfounded. After a short while, its hand went to a non-existent coat pocket, and from it the Angel grabbed what looked like a white, luminescent cellphone. It dialled a number and put it to where its ear was supposed to be.

- “Abraxas ? Lelahel here. Yes, I’ve got someone here who’d like to meet you...”

Louise blanched...

- “No, not a ‘temptation’ per se. More a ‘reality check’...”, Lelahel continued.

Louise’s hand started trembling again. She stood up...

- “Ah. I see. Well, you shouldn’t interrupt any important business. Some other time, maybe ?”

That’s when Louise realised that she’d been holding her breath for the last minute or so. She expelled the air and walked down the chapel stairs.

She started walking briskly away from Lelahel.

- “I’ll be seeing you soon”, she heard the melodic voice say.

A few yards further down, the alleyway led back to a main street. Louise turned round. It was hard to discern through the drizzle, but she didn’t think there was anyone standing by the chapel anymore...

Interpretation : Anne decided that ever since her Awakening, Louise had reconstructed herself somewhat artificially, accepting the reality of magic and the mutability of reality but refusing to confront what impact this may have on the core of her own interests and opinions on religion. This encounter, she decided, would probably shake her very much but also force her to explore these issues. She mentioned the idea of developing the sphere of Spirit some more as well.

Evaluation : The ‘shattering’ thing was what the Avatar was after, so I was happy with this. As with Matthieu, it needs to be followed through in play, but I’m not anxious about that. I know the player(s) will do it.

[DeusIrae]

Thanks for posting these -- they're quite well done, and I'm anxious to see how these personal/philisophical revelations play out in game. Cheers!

[HeWhoSpeaksOfDarknessj]

Originally posted by Sammael99
Thanks, Buffalo !

Seems I doing this for you only, these days, so here you are ;)

The following seeking is my favourite of the three, but I guess it's partly because it touches on some of my specific interests. Enjoy !
Hey I read it too. :)

[Kingleon]

Hrm. Interesting.

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by HeWhoSpeaksOfDarknessj
Hey I read it too. :)

Cool !

Thanks for the support !

It's nice to have feedback once in a while !

[Kerthan]

Being new to RPGnet I just stumbled on this thread today and read it all in one go. Great stuff indeed and made me want to start GMing again.

As you mentioned earlier when I tried Mage on our gaming group a couple of years back the players (despite my encouragement) had a tendency to overuse their magic. Then again they're not very Storytelling in their mindset. Sad to say I gave up after a few sessions.

But I've always loved the game and the feeling of it so this is a real kick for me to read "your" story :)

Just adding my praise to that of the others!

Regards,

Frederik Christiansen

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Kerthan
Just adding my praise to that of the others!

Regards,

Frederik Christiansen

Thanks a bunch !

I have a small writing session to do to catch up with where we are now in terms of game. Things have been delayed for a good reason, Anne being pregnant. Since she's pretty tired, we haven't had the chance to play, but hopefully, I should be able to bring things to a nice temporary hold before the birth...

[Elemental]

I'm still here, still reading and still enjoying. Just so you know

[Daniel]

Very nice, I like reading actual play stories bolstered with a bit of dramatic writing. I have read everything so far, and I'll keep checking back now and then - I sure hope you ge to post more, if your time permits. Actually I should give you credit for getting me back to GM more... or tell stories... whatever you prefer ;-)

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Daniel
Very nice, I like reading actual play stories bolstered with a bit of dramatic writing. I have read everything so far, and I'll keep checking back now and then - I sure hope you ge to post more, if your time permits. Actually I should give you credit for getting me back to GM more... or tell stories... whatever you prefer ;-)

Hey thanks Daniel ! That's high compliment indeed !

My issue right now, strangely enough, is not time, it's simply to organise the game sessions...

[HeWhoSpeaksOfDarknessj]

this one and Quendalon's(sp) Exalted game are realy amazing.

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by HeWhoSpeaksOfDarknessj
this one and Quendalon's(sp) Exalted game are realy amazing.

Hey, Thanks !

Can you post a link to Quendalon's Exalted game ?

[Buffalo]

Originally posted by Sammael99
Thanks, Buffalo !

Seems I doing this for you only, these days, so here you are ;)

The following seeking is my favourite of the three, but I guess it's partly because it touches on some of my specific interests. Enjoy !

How can I tell you how wonderful these are! I try to come up with things that will challenge my players--but they look pretty primitive compared to these challengings.

Buffalo

[Daniel]

Ben? Anyone? Am I the only one still watching this thread for signs of life?

[Buffalo]

Originally posted by Daniel
Ben? Anyone? Am I the only one still watching this thread for signs of life?
No.

[Sammael99]

Originally posted by Daniel
Ben? Anyone? Am I the only one still watching this thread for signs of life?

I do wtach it for signs of life occasionnally ;)

The campaign is on hiatus because Louise's player is in the last month of her pregnancy and too tired to play. Presumably, she and her husband (Bob's player) will be too tired to play for the first three months of their baby's life, so I expect the campaign to resume roughly in September/October or thereabouts.

Sorry guys, I'm as frustrated as you are, especially since I was about to introduce the first main story arc in a couple of sessions... Guess it'll have to wait !

Thanks for the support !

Ben

(Gonna have to think of a character named Buffalo and one named Daniel now... Guess which one's going to be the hardest ?)

[Daniel]

Experiencing similar problems with my Vampire chronicle... but due to exams, not pregnancy. Ah well, the chronicle will soon suffer a fatal stroke anyway, because I'm moving to a different country and leaving most of my players behind. Was just starting to become interesting...



completely off-topic: there are several "packs" here, mainly from europe... is there a german one and what's it called? Krautpack? ^^

[Sammael99]

Just a quick word to those interested to mention that we are resuming play on this campaign. A short narrative will be posted this week, followed by play on Wednesday night and the narrative for that night. Then, from the next session onwards, there will no longer be three characters but four.

Guess who the fourth one is ?

[Sammael99]

- “Bob, it’s time I told you more about who we are…”

- “Great ! Fire away, baby !”

They were lying on the floor in Melissa’s apartment, naked, a thin glint of after-love sweat on their skins.

- “I told you about some of the Traditions and the Technocracy, and from what you told me, you’ve learned a bit about the latter by yourself. But me, Keltos and a number of other people are not from the same tradition and yet we share some goals and work together.
Before I tell you more, you must understand that some of this you should keep to yourself, at least until you better understand who is who. There are some people in various Traditions who certainly don’t agree with what we’re doing, or aim at doing. Now it’s not that I don’t trust you, but well… you’ve got a big mouth. And as much as that can be pleasant for some of our activities, in this case, I urge you to think before you talk.”

- “OK. Will do !”

- “Right. Where to begin… There’s lots of reasons not to like the Technocracy, and various Traditions hate them for various reasons. One of these reasons is that they taught mankind to distrust it’s own instincts and natural urges. It made man psychotic, in a way, always worried about being ‘proper’ and forgetting all about feeling good. We believe that’s the source of a lot of things going wrong in the modern day and age. Our aim is to help some people let go of their excessive awareness of the self that leads to dissatisfaction, and just learn to be at ease with who they are. What the Technocracy calls ‘primitive’ societies understood the importance of that, and had various means to achieve it. Dancing, of course, is an important path to the loss of the self, and I don’t mean Sissi style ballroom dancing (although you can get dizzy with a good Viennese Waltz) but tribal dancing. The counter-culture in the 60s rediscovered this through rock, but that never really took up in Europe. Techno did, however, in the early 90s. So we organise clandestine rave parties. In fact, we call ourselves ‘Les Rêveurs Mystiques’…
It goes beyond just that though. We try to promote a sense of continuity. The Technocracy likes to dissociate people from their past, their roots, because these roots carry traditional values that don’t quite fit with the Technocratic view of what society should be. We do this through readings, storytelling, live music and various other cultural activities that go on at these raves.
Obviously, if you’re like any one who watches TV in France, as soon as you hear rave, you think E, right ?

- “Yeah ! E, that’s cool, right !”

- “ Nope, not right. And not cool. Definitely not.”

Bob looked confused.

- “E is a chemical product, right ? And who do you think are behind any mass production of chemical products ?”

- “The pharmaceutical industry ?”

- “The Technocracy. That’s who. And besides, who wants to pump crap into their system ? Maybe E has an effect that sounds enjoyable, but it’s also got inevitable side-effects that don’t. So we promote the use of natural drugs. That’s Keltos’ job. He grows and distributes stuff that has just as potent effects but without the nastiness.”

- “Oh, yeah ! The shrooms !”

- “Exactly. And finally, there’s the lovemaking. Through organised religions, the Technocracy has made us feel that sex is Evil. That’s maybe one of their greatest achievements. The most natural acts of all, the most revered act of all, is now seen by many as a shameful act. In fact, once again, our ancestors understood that the orgasm is the one way of losing your connection to your body and opening yourself to the world. Did you ever wonder why the Tower of Babel looks like a huge phallus in all its representations? Because lovemaking is the universal language. ‘Make love, not war’ isn’t just a slogan, it’s a fundamental truth !
So, in theory, we very much promote free sex, as you have seen here and elsewhere. But during our clandestine raves, it’s a bit trickier because of venereal diseases. I don’t want to sound paranoid, but I wouldn’t be surprised if AIDS had been designed in some state of the art Technocracy lab in the late 70s. They knew their old social barriers on what they call sexual promiscuity were crumbling down. And what better way to reinforce them than to make people die when they don’t follow the norm ? In any case, it is a problem now, and we can’t ignore it. The thing is, some of us are skilled enough in the Magick of life that we can not only diagnose the virus but cure it, on an individual scale. So that’s also something we try to do at these parties.”

Bob was unusually silent, digesting the information.

- “It’s great stuff, Melissa. I want in !”

- “Great. You’ll meet the rest of the gang soon. We’re organising a party next week. If you want your friends to come along, give them the details when we circulate them. These thins are always last moment.

- “Oh yeah ! Great idea. They could do with some loosening up…”

***

After their travels in the Virtual Worlds under Pi’s guidance, Charles had resumed his work, not entirely sure that his new life was altogether safer than the old one. And yet he felt, more and more every day, that there was possibly a better use for his new capabilities than developing gizmos in a lab… So, when Louise asked him to meet up, after a few weeks of silence, he welcomed the opportunity to get out and consider what he suspected more and more were responsibilities, a concept he’d never been very at ease with.

- “Are you still mad ?”, he asked Louise after they had ordered their coffee.

- “I was never mad at you”, Louise answered. “But Bob can be so damn irresponsible…”

There it was again… Responsibility…

- “Do you feel that we have a responsibility to use our powers… sensibly ?”, Charles asked after a long silence.

Louise stared at him, surprised at the question.

- “The real question is rather: what does ‘sensible’ mean in this instance”, she said. “All my life, I’ve tried to do everything sensibly. But that requires a frame of reference. And now that the world turns out to be not what I thought it was, I lack that frame of reference…”

- “I think I see what you mean. We’re told different things by different people, but they all seem to have some hidden agendas. Even Pi had one, although he was pretty open about it. Who do we trust ?”

- “And what do we do ! If my magic is just to be used in a secret war, on one side or the other, well, no thanks !”

Coffee was served. Both mages sipped the hot beverage in silence, wondering where to go from there…

- “Here’s a thought”, Louise said finally. “As a historian I’m used to researching obscure events. One crucial tool is cross-referencing. You never trust one, or even two, sources. You seek as many contradictory sources as you can find. After a while, the confrontation of all these sources paints a picture that is most likely closer to reality. Why don’t we try and do that ? »

- “You mean, find books on mages ?”

- “I mean find mages. And talk with them.”

- “Oh. Yes. Good idea. How do we go about finding mages ?”

- “Well, who do we know? Pi, but he’s unavailable right now. I know a scholar who belongs to the Technocracy, and my so-called ‘mentor’ who belongs to the Order of Hermes, but isn’t very involved with the organisation.”

- “I’ve got my boss, but I’m honestly not sure how productive a discussion with him on the use of magic would be. And I think Bob knows a woman, what was her name ? Melina ?”

- “Melissa. And there’s Keltos. OK, that’s quite a few, but we’ve talked with most of them. We should try to meet up with Bob’s lady. Somehow I think talking directly with her might be more efficient than asking Bob about her philosophy.”

Silence, again. Louise watched the traffic pass by in the rainy Paris street.

- “We need to find other mages”, she said finally. “I think I know how. You remember how Pi said that many mages stored Quintessence within their Patterns? Well, we can both detect Prime energy. So if we walk through the streets looking for Quintessence, we’re bound to find mages, right?”

- “And what do we do then?”

- “We’ll see when it happens…”

And so they did. They spent a couple of afternoons strolling down the streets of the centre of Paris, looking for mages who had stored Prime energy. Unfortunately, they were not successful. So it was with some relief and anticipation that they heard from Bob about the rave that his ‘friends’ were organising. Charles looked forward to it with the same curiosity he had about everything. Louise was slightly apprehensive, not being the type to jump up and down to loud music and ingest psychotropic drugs…

[Buffalo]

Wonderful, wonderful, and again wonderful.

[Sammael99]

Wonderful, wonderful, and again wonderful.

Thanks Buffalo !

You're my number one fan !

**Cue Spooky Stephen King Music**

Seriouusly, for those who want to catch up and/or re-read the story up til now in a more digestible format, I have compiled everything so far in a printer-friendly 52 page Word document. It weighs 308 ko unzipped.

If you're interested, PM me your email !

Next update today or tomorrow.

[Buffalo]

I wonder if it would help to start a new thread. And refer people back to this thread if they want more.
Of course that would mean more work for you, and I am sure you are quite busy enough!

[Sammael99]

I wonder if it would help to start a new thread. And refer people back to this thread if they want more.
Of course that would mean more work for you, and I am sure you are quite busy enough!

Buffalo,

Maybe you're right.

I'll still use this one to post the next few installments, and once I feel comfortable with the 'first season' being finished, I'll start a new thread.

Good thinking.

Next step is to design Avatar Pentagram T-Shirts.

;)

[Sammael99]

And so it was that Louise and Charles ended in a queue of cars parked illegally by the side of the A1 highway, about 50 kms north of Paris on a chilly Tuesday night. Bob had told them to wait by the locked exit of a construction site, and it was making Louise very uncomfortable. After about twenty minute’s wait, with Louise checking for Police lights in her rear mirror every 30 seconds, the queue suddenly moved forward and the two friends noticed that the gate to the construction site had been forced open. They followed the slow moving queue in the mud for about twenty minutes until they reached a derelict industrial building. Even before they opened the car doors, they could hear the music. To say it was loud was very much an understatement…

Bob met them at the entrance.

“Yo ! Glad to see you !”, he yelled to them both. He was grinning like a child, genuinely happy. There was little doubt he was enjoying himself.

“Let me get you a drink”, he said.

He soon came back with two glasses of a clear liquid. Louise simply pretended to drink, but Charles tried and enjoyed the unidentified alcohol. Meanwhile, Bob led them through the growing crowd of participants to a petite woman in her 30s. She was dressed with tie-die baggy clothes, and seemed to be in charge.

“Ah !”, she exclaimed. “You must be Louise and Charles. Bob has told me much about you. It’s nice to know he has friends somewhat less wild than him !”

Bob winced.

“Would it be possible to have a talk with you ?”, Louise yelled over the techno drumbeat.

“Sure”, Melissa answered, “but it’s going to be difficult tonight. I’m the only one not actually enjoying myself yet, I have to get things organised. But I’m sure we can sort a get together soon enough!”

Louise was a little bit disappointed, but didn’t show it. Soon, Bob left Charles and her to stare at the exotic crowd while he went to jump up and down wildly on the improvised dance floor…

A little bit later the music subsided.

“Already over, do you think?”, Louise asked Charles.

“I doubt it… There seems to be something happening over there, let’s check it out”.

Indeed, a large circle had formed around an aged black man. He was dressed in traditional Malian fashion and sitting in front of a large Kora harp. He smiled at the audience. It seemed that many of those in attendance were familiar with him and knew what to expect. They hushed the new participants and soon, the man started to talk.

“This is a story of long, long ago, when Man still knew how to talk with the other people, those of Brother Lion’s Kingdom. When he still knew about Brother Monkey’s cunning, Brother Bear’s courage and Brother Lizard’s stealth…”

The man proceeded to tell a story of Africa, a story of the beginnings of Man, a story of trust and friendship, of love lost and regained, of valour and sorcerers’ secrets. He punctuated some passages with reedy chords played on the Kora and even once or twice sang melancholy songs in Malian. The silence in the audience was exceptional, especially considering who the audience was and why they had come.

At the end of the story, Louise emerged as if from a dream. She couldn’t quite remember the plot, but she felt that this was somehow her story, the story of Mankind. As the crowd broke up and the music resumed, she walked to the Storyteller.

“Your tale was marvellous!”, she said.

“Thank you very much”, the man answered with a heavy African accent.

From up close, he looked a lot older.

“I am Louise, a friend of Bob’s”, she said, hoping that the man knew who Bob was.

“The fiery Robert, as his Grandmother calls him !”, the man answered. “I am Lobi. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

Charles and Bob had now joined Louise and Charles introduced himself to Lobi. Meanwhile, Louise exchanged a look with Bob to try and figure out whether Lobi was a mage. Bob’s expression seemed to indicate that he was, so Louise decided to push her enquiries:

“Lobi, do you have time to talk with us?”

“There is always time to talk. This is one of the greater truths… What is it you wish to talk about?”

“Well, sorry to be blunt, but we have… awakened recently and, to be honest, we’re a bit lost…”

“That is not an unusual situation for one in your position.”

“The thing is, we simply don’t know what to do with…” She trailed off, struggling for a neutral word that wouldn’t sound too corny.

“You find yourself in a position to make a change, and you’re wondering which change to make.”

Louise didn’t answer. This was exactly it. Lobi had cut to the core of her dilemma, and this echoed the interrogations that Charles had about his responsibility to the world. Louise looked Lobi expectantly.

“The first and foremost answer to that question”, he said, “is that not only can I not answer it for you, but you must not let anyone answer it for you. You must find things that matter to you and make these evolve in ways that make them better in your eyes. Everyone will try to convince you that their way is right, but only you can know which way is the right way.”

Louise and the others remained silent. Despite the loud music all around them, they realised that they could hear Lobi as clearly as if they’d been talking in Louise’s living room.

“I sense that my answer disappoints you. Let me tell you what I do, and maybe you will understand how this is related to your own vision.”

“I am a sorcerer to my people. What we call a Marabout. But it is only the old ones, those who remember the motherland, who still believe and come to me. To the others, I am a joke. The sad story of my people is that they left their home to find a new home, but it was not there to be found. I came with them and I tried to keep them connected to their roots. But those of the younger generation want so much to belong that they cut their roots, and yet they hate the soil that they have been planted in. Hence they no longer have roots. This is my tragedy, the tragedy of my people. For years I struggled to help these young ones make sense of who they were, with little success. You can’t preach to one who does not listen.”

“Then, a few years ago, I met Melissa. She was, in her own way, trying to do the same thing I was. She was the one who opened my eyes to this terrible truth: it is not just the young of my people who lack roots: it is all the young of this modern age who wonder where they are and why. With her, and others, including Bob here, we try to help these young ones connect with themselves, accept who they are, we give them a sense of continuity with our collective roots. That is the task I have assigned myself.”

He looked up at Louise, Charles and Bob, and smiled.

“So you see, you must not turn to another to figure out what you want to do. You must find it in yourself. It is who you are that must determine what you want to do, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!”

They smiled back.

“Thank you, Lobi”, Louise concluded. “You have given us a lot to think about…”

[greuh]

Samael99, as I said you on CasusNO, your story is excellent, and written with great style.
I liked less the Digital Web part (I had the same problem with Highlander TV) cause it is not in Paris...

For the Louise seeking, I feel some Sandman and some INS/MV in it...

Well. I know I come 3 months after, but I'd love to read the next part of the story!!

greuh.

[Sammael99]

Samael99, as I said you on CasusNO, your story is excellent, and written with great style.

Thanks ! I do my best both to faithfully narrate what happened around the game table and make it enjoyable to the reader. I'm far from being a writer though, but thanks for your indulgence anyway !

I liked less the Digital Web part (I had the same problem with Highlander TV) cause it is not in Paris...

The players enjoyed it, it gave them a change of pace. It's nice actually that my players have not, on the whole, read the same novels and comics I have, it allows me to surprise them with stuff that doesn't come from my own brain.

For the Louise seeking, I feel some Sandman and some INS/MV in it...

Sandman, undoubtedly (I guess you know where the Silver City stuff comes from). INS not consciously, since I never read it. But other Gaiman stuff like Neverwhere may have influenced me visually. Nephilim may have played a role as well, since I always loved the Kabbala summonings and the visual descriptions they gave.

Still, Sandman is the biggie. Hard for me to GM a game such as Mage witout some Sandman influencing me ;)

Well. I know I come 3 months after, but I'd love to read the next part of the story!!

3 months ? More like 1 1/2 years since I started posting it here.

Play has not resumed for now. We did a session in September which I have not yet narrated, but I guess I'm feeling a bit discouraged with how hard it is to plan sessions. The fault is as much mine as thiers, actually, but still...

Anyway, I guess I need to guess my ass in gear and at least finish the narration of what has been played (namely, the Truce Council). I might try and do that over the holiday. Once that's done, I'll be depending on players, though...

[greuh]

Yes, that would be nice if you could finish these.
Also, I think you should find a Mage online repository to put your .doc file for other MJ's use! It would make for a good inspiration to anyone!

For INS/MV, it is the moment the angel calls a devil by phone. It is a real INS/MV moment. If you haven't ever read INS/MV, maybe the influence comes from Good Omens ;) If you liked Sandman, one of the scenarii of Fire&ICE ("Et nox facta est" if I remember well) will speak to you.

3 months, I said, because it is 3 months since the last post in there (well, it was before *I* post there). Look at your .sig ;)

greuh.

[Sammael99]

Yes, that would be nice if you could finish these.

I want to, but available time is mega-scarce these days, and there are a number of rpg reviews I wish to write before I go back to Mage.

Then it will all depend on whether my players and myself find the time to meet regularly or not...


Also, I think you should find a Mage online repository to put your .doc file for other MJ's use! It would make for a good inspiration to anyone!

I will, and I'll link it if and when I start a new thread if and when the new leg of the campain starts...

For INS/MV, it is the moment the angel calls a devil by phone. It is a real INS/MV moment. If you haven't ever read INS/MV, maybe the influence comes from Good Omens ;) If you liked Sandman, one of the scenarii of Fire&ICE ("Et nox facta est" if I remember well) will speak to you.

I guess I could have been subconciously influenced by many things. It was completely freeform by that stage, since the idea of the seeking was simply to confront Louise with a being that epitomized all she had ever refused to believe in, and see where that went.

Was it an Angel ?

Was there someone on the other end of that phone ?

I'll leave you to ponder...

3 months, I said, because it is 3 months since the last post in there (well, it was before *I* post there). Look at your .sig ;)

I know ! It was a (bad) joke.

[greuh]

Thanks for the answers! :)

greuh.

[Sammael99]

Thanks for the answers! :)

greuh.

You're welcome. I guess you got me motivated again to finish the narration and try and get the damn players back together to move this thing forward...

[greuh]

You're welcome. I guess you got me motivated again to finish the narration and try and get the damn players back together to move this thing forward...

GREAT!

greuh.

[Daniel]

Yaaay!! It's come back to life! *getting into comfortable reading position*

[Sammael99]

Don't hold yer breath too soon, but I should hhave some time next week and I will try to at least catch up. As for the future sessions, a lot will depend on the players. I do hope it picks up though !

[Dakkareth]

Nice SH/Actual Play thread. Looking forward to more :)

[Daniel]

Man, I sure hope you'll have some time to write up more of that compaign... I seriously love it. Kick your damn players into playing again. Players are the death of every good campaign, but they can also be the life of it.

[Sammael99]

Nice SH/Actual Play thread. Looking forward to more :)

Thanks man !

Actually, new readers is probably my best motivation !

I'll try and at least get up to date over the holiday.

[Moah]

Awesome thread, awesome campaign, please, please, please, give us MORE!

PS: Is there still room in your group for a new player?

*looks all innocent-like*

[Sammael99]

Awesome thread, awesome campaign, please, please, please, give us MORE!

PS: Is there still room in your group for a new player?

*looks all innocent-like*

Unlikely, but not impossible.

When the campaign resumes, a new player is supposed to join. If he can't commit to it, there will ba an available slot, but it's unlikely that he won't.

I'll keep you posted !

[Sammael99]

Charles slept late that morning. He and Louise had left the party shortly after 2 AM, there was no telling how late Bob had stayed... When he finally emerged from sleep, it was a bright winter noon, clear blue sky and all. He could feel from under his blankets that it was devilishly cold, too. He turned his head to check the time on his alarm clock, but there was a stange white envelope propped against the clock.

Charles stood in his bed, intrigued and a little worried. He was pretty certain that that hadn’t been there when he went to bed the previous night... Hesitantly, he grabbed the envelope. It was quality paper, but there was no name written on the front. Having examined it thoroughly, Charles slowly opened it. Inside was a large handwritten carton in brown ink that said :

You are hereby summoned to a hearing by the Truce Council on December 15th, at exactly 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

There was no address or further information.

***

When Louise came back from the open air market with her basket full of vegetables, cheese and meat, she locked her door thoroughly, as she always did ever since her awakening. She started sorting out the food, leaving only aside the leek, cheese and eggs she needed for the gratin she was intending to cook. Suddenly, she heard a sharp noise coming from the living room.

“Toc”

She stood up, startled, and waited in silence. A few seconds later, she heard another sharp noise. It sounded like a rock striking the pavement...

“Toc”

She walked slowly to the kitchen window and stared at the square down below, but there was nothing there to explain the noise. And there was the sharp sound again.

“Toc”

- “Who’s there ?”, she asked with a slight worry in her voice...

She was only answered by another utterance of the sound.

“Toc”

Slowly, she moved to her knife drawer, opened it and grabbed the largest, sharpest knife she could find.

“Toc”.

The sound again. She moved towards the living room, her knife brandished in front of her.

“Toc”

She jumped in the living room, ready to face whatever was there. At first, she didn’t see anything. But then she spotted a shadow by the window.

“Toc”

As she got closer, she understood where the sound came from. On the window ledge, there was a large raven. It was staring directly at her, and once it a while, it struck the window with its beak.

“Toc”

She opened the window to shoo the bird away, but as soon as she did that, the bird leaned sideways and grabbed in its beak a large envelope that it had presumable propped against the side of the ledge. It then leaned towards Louise, as if to give her the envelope. Surprised, she grabbed it slowly, and opened it. It was rich paper, and the hadwriting inside was very obviously quill. The ink was brown. It said :

You are hereby summoned to a hearing by the Truce Council on December 15th, at exactly 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

***

Bob hadn’t slept at all. The party had finished around seven in the morning, and he had a rehearsal with his band at ten. So he had walked in the streets, still buzzed by the night’s excitement. Once in a while, doubt tugged at him. “What if”, he mused, “there was something more serious about all this magick thing that meets the eye...” He was thinking of Lobi’s comments the night before...

Later on, he joined his band and these unusually mature lines of thought fled as fast as they had come. They were in the middle of working a new, funkier, arrangement for Rastaman Chant, when the door to the squat they used as a reheasal studio opened slowly. A man in a formal black suit, sharp white shirt and a black top hat stepped in. Silently, he approached the makeshit stage, and handed a startled Bob an envelope.

Bob took it, gave quick look and then dropped amongst his lyrics sheet and resumed playing. The man didn’t look surprised, gave him a slight nod and left.

Bob and his band played for another hour. When the rehearsal was over, Robert, the bass player, walked to Bob and said :

- “Hey dude, that’s some weird friends you got...”

- “What are you talking about, man ?”

- “That weird goon, with the suit !”

- “Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that...”

He walked back to his stuff, put down his beer and opened the envelope :

You are hereby summoned to a hearing by the Truce Council on December 15th, at exactly 3 o’clock in the afternoon.

Shrugging, he dropped the carton back amongst his stuff...

[Sammael99]

Just a quick word for the few fans still out there.

We have resumed play !

I still have a bit of narration to catch up with of our game in September, and then it's all new stuff as of last Thursday !

I'm hoping we can play between once and twice a month, a new player has joined, and I'm excited as hell !!!

[Buffalo]

Hooray! I can't wait!

Funny how life sometimes gets in the way of gaming.

[greuh]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!

greuh. :)

[Sammael99]

Hooray! I can't wait!

Funny how life sometimes gets in the way of gaming.

Sometimes ?

Sometimes ?

Ah, the sweet smell of irony...

;)

[greuh]

It is 15 days now. You had plenty of time to resume play. So give us our fix!!

:D
greuh.

[Sammael99]

It is 15 days now. You had plenty of time to resume play. So give us our fix!!

:D
greuh.

Damn...

Real life has gotten in the way yet again...

I am focusing my efforts on organising the next game, but as soon as that's settled, I promise I'll start writing.

[Sammael99]

December 15th. It was cold, unusually cold for Paris, with the pleasant side-effect that Parisians had been able to enjoy a bit of snow, for once. Of course, that made driving a nightmare and the number of unsuspecting Parisians with a broken arm or leg was well above seasonal average, but that didn’t stop most people from hoping the snow would last ‘til Christmas.

For some of Louise’s students, the snow also made for a good excuse not to attend classes. In previous years, that would probably have driven her to a quiet rage, such was her intolerance for procrastination, but on that particular day, she couldn’t help but feel relieved at the idea that there would be less students at her lab class that afternoon. The class was due to start at half past three, just half an hour after the time indicated on the strange invitation she’d received a few weeks previously. She didn’t know if anything was going to happen and what, but the idea that there would potentially be fewer witnesses was, to some extent, a relief.

As usual, she got in early and entered the lab to prepare her papers. As she closed the door behind her, she turned round, only to realise that she was not in the lab. Instead, she had just entered a somewhat stuffy room with napoleon green wallpaper. The carpet was thick and expensive looking, and there was no furniture apparent except for a nineteenth century settee and a low mahogany table. There was one more door leading into the room, identical to the one she’d just been through.

She opened the door behind her again, only to spot a corridor that looked like it belonged with the room she was standing in. The corridor led to an ornate door, which she opened. She ended up in the room she had just left, or one perfectly identical. After a moment's hesitation, she put her handbag down on the settee and performed the experiment once again. It was the same room.

Louise decided not to get overly stressed about the situation. She had expected something to happen that afternoon, and there it had just happened. She sat down on the settee and extracted her students’ papers from her bag, along with a thick red pen.

About five minutes later, Charles joined her.

-“How, what…”, he blurted, looking around as the door behind him closed, seemingly of its own will
-“I guess this is where our meeting with the Truce Council is supposed to take place”, Louise responded matter of factly.
-“Was it today ?”, Charles asked, confused.
-“You know what ? I’m going to buy you a PDA for Christmas.”
-“Oh, thank you, that’s really nice. What’s that got to do with where we are now, though ?”
-“God…”, Louise exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “Just sit down and shut up, I’m grading papers”.

They were both silent for a few minutes. Charles studied the room, but in truth, there was little there to of interest to examine. He started daydreaming, as often when he didn’t know what to do…

-“Shit !”, he blurted suddenly.
-“What ?”, Louise asked in a tired voice.
-“My rabbits, they’re going to explode…”
-“I don’t want to know…”
-“See, I was experimenting with bombarding a couple of specimens with Omega waves when I went to the supply cabinet and ended up here. If I don’t go back there and stop the bombardment, I suspect the rabbits’ red globules will…”
-“I said I don’t want to know”.
-“Oh.”

The door opened. Bob walked in, unzipping his fly. By the time he registered where he was, or rather, where he wasn't, it was too late. He’d started urinating on the carpet.

-“Jesus, Bob !”, Louise yelled.
-“Well, I’ve started now, I might as well finish…”

Indeed, Bob finished his business and walked to his friends. Louise put her papers back in her back, her faced frowning at the acrid smell.

-“Bob, you are simply the grossest person I know”.
-“Why, because I take a leek when I think I’m in the toilet? How stupid is it to whiz me here when I’m going for a piss, eh? Where are we anyway?”
-“Some kind of antechamber of the council, I’m guessing…”
-“Where do these doors lead?”
-“Back here”.
-“What? That’s not possible!”
-“Try for yourself…”

Bob tried and ended back in the same room with the others.

-“That’s really weird, but kinda cool, really… I’m wondering if Pi could do that…”, he mused..
-“Maybe it’s a good idea not to mention him too much around here, he didn’t seem to be friends with the people who have called us in.”

At that point, one of the two doors opened. An old and dry looking lady walked in with a tray. She gently put the tray down on the table. There were three porcelain cups, a silver coffee pot and a small plate of biscuits.

-“The members of the council will be along shortly”, she said.

The three mages looked in silence as she left the room. Bob jumped up and quicly opened the door behind the old lady, but she was gone.

-“Damnit! How do they do that!” he growled.

They settled back down, sipping coffee and munching biscuits...

[greuh]

greuh.wants.more.

greuh.

[greuh]

greuh.wants.more.

greuh.

I could not agree more with that statement!
*takes the whip*
/SCHLACK/
WRITE!
/SCHLACK/
WRITE!!

greuh.

[Sammael99]

A while later, the old lady came back and ushered them to another room through the ubiquitous corridor. This new one was spacious and well-lit although there were no windows. There was a long wooden desk barring the room, with three people seated behind, obviously waiting for them.

On the left was a man wearing a dark robe decorated with silvery characters. He looked old and wrinkled, but there was an obvious energy in his attitude that belied his years. His short-cropped gray beard and hair gave him a severe appearance, and the dark look he shot at Louise in particular didn’t do anything to dismiss the impression that he wasn’t exactly endeared to the characters.

Sitting next to him was a Rabbi in traditional attire. He also had a beard, and of course a kippa, but his demeanour was altogether more benevolent. He smiled to the characters and signalled that they should sit on the wooden chairs that faced the desk.

The final member of the trio was also the oddest of the three. She was a middle aged woman, still good looking, with long blonde hair and discreet glasses. She wore a pastel green suit and a white shirt. In front of her on the desk was a strange keyboard: it had keys of many different colours and shapes, with symbols inscribed on them but no letters or numbers. There was no screen in evidence although a faint glimmer in front of her let Charles suspect that, perhaps, there was an immaterial one projected by the keyboard.

- “I am Cartaphilius, of the illustrious Order of Hermes”, the severe man in the flowing robes said. “This is Rabbi Bensimon of the Celestial Choir, and this is Professor Hamelin, Daughter of Ether. We are the Truce Council and we have called you before us for accusations of endangering the Truce and consorting with terrorists. Now introduce yourselves.”

Louise, Bob and Charles looked at each other. Bob spoke first:

- “Nice bathrobe, man! I’m Bob, I play reggae in my own band, and apart from the occasional joint, I ain’t done nothing the law frowns upon yet. You should chill out…”

Cartaphilius’ face blanched with suppressed anger. He turned to Louise.

- “I am Louise Vidal-Naqué, I’m a professor of History at La Sorbonne, and I since awakening, I have joined the Order of Hermes.”

- “Yes. Recruitment has grown lax these last few years…”, Cartaphilius answered venomously.

Finally, Charles introduced himself uneasily:

- I am Charles Seltibus, I’m a biologist and I work with Professeur Merrin…”

Pr. Hamelin looked up, intrigued.

- “I will be interested in knowing what you work on”, she said, “but this is neither the place nor the time. Our contacts within the Technocracy have informed us that you were involved in an attempted bombing near the Tati department store. Since the Truce necessitates that we wash our dirty laundry amongst ourselves, the responsibility to assess the truth of these matters rests on our shoulders. I’m sure that there is a logical explanation to your behaviour, you all seem reasonable and not inclined towards terrorist activities…”

Louise and Charles sensed that Professor Hamelin was a straightforward person, someone who could be trusted, and they were inclined to simply tell the story in their own words. Bob was a little more guarded. The presence of Cartaphilius, in particular, didn’t reassure him much… The lack of trust seemed to go both ways, and Cartaphilius spoke again:

- “Let’s hear them before we suppose of their innocence. Their reputation isn’t so flattering, and the information we have on them is pretty damning !”

Louise could see that things weren’t going the way they should. She didn’t trust Charles not to make some silly comment that could be misinterpreted, and she especially didn’t want to let Bob insult everyone on the other side of the table before they could give their versions of the facts. So she decided to tell the story.

She started by a brief account of their awakening, although she decided not to mention Pi’s role. In her version, all three escaped men in black who were looking for them and thus found each other. She then fast forwarded to the events at Tati, explaining how they recognised Capoulosse, the old man who had blown himself up in the Metro, how they noticed that he was full of Quintessence in a way that was way beyond normal.

She then described their chase, how she warned the Police, how Bob tried to talk the old man out of making himself blow up and, when that failed, how he warned the security guards and convinced them to evacuate the building. She detailed how Charles focused the flow of people through the other entrance and used his talents to avoid a panic and how, finally, the police had arrived with some equipment that pumped the quintessence out of the old man and then shot him. One of them was clearly a mage…

- “Yes, that was the intervention of Inspector Daniel. It took a lot from him to avoid any damage to the crowd. He met with an unlucky, but not altogether unsurprising demise a few days later…”, Professor Hamelin added.

- “And, of course, you were the heroes and had nothing to do with setting up the attack in the first place”, Cartaphilius insinuated. “The trouble is we only have you word for it, and that’s going to be more than insufficient!”

There was a long silence, and then Bob turned to Cartaphilius :

- “Well, you’d know if you’d been there, right? But where were you when people needed to be saved from a lunatic mage? In your Ivory Tower wanking over your old books? Not that there’s anything wrong with wanking, but you’ve got a big mouth for someone who wasn’t there and did nothing to help…”

A second of shocked silence ensued, then Cartaphilius stood up and started yelling:

- “I will not tolerate being insulted by a nigger puppy! I can crush you with a flick of my fingers, boy!”
- “Do it then”, Bob answered. “We’ll see who goes on trial…”

Cartaphilius sat back, seething with rage. For the first time, Rabbi Bensimon spoke.

- “Let us calm down. This is not a trial. Cartaphilius is naturally suspicious, but that is no reason to insult him. I, for one, believe that your story has the ring of truth. There is, however, another matter, perhaps more grave, that we need to discuss with you. You seem to have close relations with the Virtual Adept that calls himself Pi. You may or may not know that this man is considered a terrorist by both the Technocracy and the Traditions, as he has been disregarding the terms of the Truce from the first day and as such endangered both mages and sleepers. The technocracy wishes to apprehend him, and your proven connection with him casts doubt on your intentions or justifications…”

- “Well, you know”, Charles started, “Pi is really a good guy. He took us in when we awakened, he helped us cope with… the changes, you know. I really don’t think he’s a terrorist or anything…”

- “Don’t waste your time trying to justify his actions, they are not justifiable”, Cartaphilius interjected.

There was another, uneasy silence. Charles looked again at the three Council members, and his eyes rested at last on Professor Hamelin. She was looking at him, smiling gently. “Someone who wears such a soft colour of pink can’t be ill-intended”, Charles thought…

- “Well, Pi helped us, and that’s a fact”, he said. “And he didn’t even try to indoctrinate us against you or anything. Oh, he made it clear that he didn’t have much respect for you guys, but he didn’t tell us that he was right and you were wrong. He told us to find our own way…”

- “But you helped him in his endeavours nonetheless”, Cartaphilius said menacingly.

- “To be honest”, Louise said, “it was more the other way around… We asked him for help several times, and he was always helpful. We didn’t have anyone else to turn to.”

- “You could have come to us…”, Rabbi Bensimon answered.

- “But we didn’t know how to contact you… You don’t exactly advertise, do you?”

Another, uneasy silence. Then Professeur Hamelin spoke again. She was somehow impressive in that deep red suit, as if to emphasise the importance of what she was saying:

- “I guess the question we need to find an answer to collectively is ‘where is Pi’. Do you have any information as to his whereabouts?”

- “Well, he disappeared some time back, and we have no idea where he is. Not that we could find his residence even if we wanted to…”, Louise added.

- “So, how did you use to contact him ?”

- “We had an e-mail address and an ICQ number for that, but they’ve been dead for the last few weeks. With all due respect, I know you consider him to be a criminal, but he’s our friend and we’re more worried than anything else…”

- “Lies!”, Cartaphilius shouted. “Of course you know where he is, and you will tell us!”

After his first outburst, Bob had decided it was probably best not to speak anymore, but this last piece of yelling made him snap:

- “You need to chill out man, smoke some weed or something. We don’t know where he is, OK? You wanna think we do? Fine by me, but that’s not gonna help you none…”

Again, Cartaphilius looked like he was going to burst, but Rabbi Bensimon laid his hand on the hermetic’s arm and took the lead:

- “Has master Pi been in touch with you?”

They hesitated…

- “Yes, he has”, Louise said. “We had asked him to look into something for us, and he sent us a few messages about that, but he didn’t say where he was or when he was coming back.”
- “And what was it that you asked of him?”, Professor Hamelin asked quietly.

Another hesitation. Then Louise decided she couldn’t see why the Council knowing about the fourth Mage would hurt. Maybe they could even help. Professor Hamelin certainly seemed willing to help…

- “When we awakened”, Louise said, “we noticed that there was a fourth one who had awakened at the same time. We saw the men in black grab him and take him away. A few weeks later, the same tattoo appeared on all three of us, and there’s a Primal link between us through this tattoo. It’s not a closed circle though, and we suspect that he belongs to our ‘circle’, that he has the tattoo as well. We’d like to be reunited with him, but our only contact within the Technocracy mentioned that if we wanted to do that we’d have to join them. So we asked Pi if he had any information regarding the fourth man, and in particular who he was and where he was. Pi hasn’t come back with anything useful yet.”

Both Rabbi Bensimon and Professor Hamelin seemed very interested in this, but Cartaphilius obviously felt it was a decoy, or a made up story. He was still scowling.

Rabbi Bensimon stood up.

- “I think we have heard what we needed to hear. I will ask you now to go back to the salon where you first arrived and wait for us to deliberate.”

They left the room and went back to their posh settee.

- “Well, that didn’t go down too well…”, Louise said.

- “What do you expect with a racist freak who wears robe and sticks a couple of broomsticks up his arse ?”, Bob asked.

They laughed nervously…

- “Still, I’m not sure having these people on our bad side is such a good idea”, Louise mentioned.

- “You’re right”, Charles answered. “But what else could we have told them that would have pleased them? It’s not like we know where Pi is, and if these people are the Technocracy’s lackeys, I’m not giving Pi away even if I did know where he was...”

- “I guess you’re right. I’m just worried that we’re building up more enemies than allies…”

- “It’s only the stuck up wizard, though. The others seemed to be reasonable enough. Did you notice how the lady’s dress kept changing colours? Nifty!”

- “What? It didn’t change colours! It was pink all along. Very nice shade, actually.”

- “It wasn’t pink”, Louise said. “It was deep red!”

- “See?”, Bob concluded…

They waited for nearly an hour. Then Professor Hamelin walked in the salon. He suit was grey, this time.

- “The Council has decided not to transfer you into the Technocracy’s custody”, she said. “You are, however, to inform us of any further information you have on the explosions of Quintessence and who is behind them, and you are to give us any information you may have on Pi’s whereabouts. He may be your friend, but he is dangerous, whether you believe it or not. On another note, I am personally very interested in the tattoos you mentioned. If you find anything more about them, I’d be happy to discuss it with you.”

- “How do we get in touch ?”, Charles asked.

She gave him her card, shook their hands, and left.

- “How do we get home?”, Bob asked.

- “The way we came in?”, Louise answered.

It turned out she was right.

[Sammael99]

This marks the end of the first season of the Avatar Pentagram. The second season has now started and I devoted a new thread to it. It can be found here. (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=174383) .

Thanks to all the readers so far and the encouragement. I hope you enjoy the rest as much !