Legacy of the Stone Assembly, Chapter I: The Cabal, The Quill, and the Concord

Cormant House, a Victorian mansion in the "Painted Lady" style, lay a couple of miles outside Salem in a 2-acre woodlot. From the road, a rather dull wooden sign directed tourists to the site with a line art drawing of the house and the name in florid typeface.

The visitors were greeted at the door as they came in by a man in a wool jacket, about 5'8", with spiked hair and an eyebrow piercing, who introduced himself as "Arathnos" before directing them to wait in the antechamber.
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The antechamber had a front desk, uncomfortable benches, and framed pictures of historical buildings around Salem. Altogether, it had the air of a tourist trap for historians, the very elderly, and absolute completists.

OOC said:

You are now in the antechamber of Cormant House. First to post means first to arrive; feel free to socialize, investigate the room, or speak with Arathnos as you like--he won't speak unless spoken to.

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Juno "Thorn" Reyes[/sblock]

8:00pm, 13 November, 2008
Cormant House
Salem, Massachusetts

A dirty grey Camaro that had probably been a beaut about twenty years ago prowled up the road and into the small rustic parking lot of the Cormant House. Its front tires pressed against one of the logs that marked the end of the spot, then backed off. The car thrummed with drumbeats conducted through its frame, and the sound of heavy electric guitar playing could be heard muted from within. The sound of the engine was an afterthought, though it sounded meaty too. All of these things cut off sharply, and the headlights died out. A moment later the driver's side door opened and she emerged.

7:00pm, 13 November, 2008
15362 Coolidge Ave
Cambridge Massachusetts

Hector Reyes was eating breakfast when Juno slipped out of her room and made her way towards the front door...somehow managing to be both stealthy and nonchalant. He didn't even turn around.

"You done with your homework, mija?"

Juno froze in mid-step, then sighed. "It's not homework, dad. It's an application. I have like, another month to get it in." Besides, she added mentally, it's not like they teach what I'm into at State.

"You need to take this seriously," her father said firmly. "Or you can work with me all your life if you want. Wake up as the sun goes down and have dinner at dawn? Like a vampire."

That gave Juno a moment of curious pause. She'd never asked 'Papa Chango' about vampires. Huh. A moment later she gave voice to the first thing to come into her head, which was, "I dunno, you get to carry a gun around."

"Just makes me a bigger target," was his tired reply. But he quickly shot his daughter a sly look. "Besides, they play country music on the speakers sometimes."

Juno scowled. "I'll do the application, I promise. I'm just going out for a bit."

Now it was Hector's turn to scowl. The expression was very similar between them. "A guy?" There was a warning in his voice.

"Friends," Juno clarified. "A bunch of us. We'll be doing some heroin and some Russian Roulette but don't worry, no guys."

Hector nodded. "Okay then. But you know I'm working tonight, so you can't use..."

"...it's cool, Uncle Hugo's letting me use his," she quickly replied.

"Back by midnight," Juno's father said stubbornly.

"Always," Juno lied.

8:00pm, 13 November, 2008
Cormant House
Salem, Massachusetts

The radio had started playing 'Enter Sandman' as she'd driven up to the place. Seemed oddly appropriate to her. Oh, it was possible that some wizard had magicked her (oops, make that Uncle Hugo's) car stereo, but really...why? That'd been one thing her uncle had warned her about.

Once you knew, there was no going back. You couldn't unsee it, you couldn't forget that anything you might once have shrugged at and filed away under 'stuff happens,' now had to be scrutinized a bit harder. Even silly, stupid, or innocent coincidences might have a double meaning, or a purpose working behind them.

Or it might just be a cool song by Metallica that a DJ wanted to hear.

Juno grinned at herself and shook her head. Wasn't she a deep vat of wisdom tonight? Well. A deep vat of something. She concentrated for a moment and checked her spells...obsessing over them momentarily like a performer might over her makeup before going on stage.

This was, after all, the first time someone other than Chango would be seeing them.

Okay. Eyes up. Head straight. Shoulders square. Lets do this.

As Juno came to the front door, it opened to reveal a young-looking man within, who spoke his name to her. She blinked at 'Arathnos,' momentarily taken aback by how not-what-she'd-been-expecting he was.

"I'm Ju...Thorn. Just Thorn," she said when he introduced himself...nearly flubbing her Shadow Name. Oh, that was smooth. Making a great impression so far 'Thorn.'

Another surprise; no one else was here.

She wandered around the little vestibule then asked Arathnos, "There's more coming, right?"

(OOC - Forgot to list spells active: Second Sight (Spirit 1, Mage Sight plus Gauntlet strength), Ephemeral Armor (Spirit 2, 2 Armor, works against spirit or physical attacks), Sense Life (Life 1, can detect living things in area, establishes 'safe zone' where nothing living can approach without alerting mage).)

Juno smiled back at him.

"Impatient," she corrected.

So Arathnos may not know everyone who's coming. I wonder if he knew I was coming.

She eyed a bench, but it looked like the multiperson equivalent of a school desk seat. Hard and somehow crafted to precisely hit the thin line between 'comfortable enough to tolerate' and 'too painful to sit in,' leaving students hovering in a limbo of aching backs and stiff joints without ever quite giving them legitimate excuse enough to stand.

Instead she leaned against a wall where she could see the door and Arathnos, and studied him to see if she could sense any magic on or around him.

"So what's your story?" she asked, feeling a little emboldened by his apparent youth and informality. "You work for this...consilium?"

OOC: Sorry, had a hectic day today. So I only have the first part of my post done. But I'll have the second part up later tonight hopefully.

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Part I - The Day Before
12 November, 2008

Mitchell needed wheels. Cormant House was outside of Boston proper so local public transportation was out of the question. And that meant only one thing: Maggie. Scooping his cellphone up off of the coffee table, he speed-dialed his younger sister. When he had first moved to Cambridge from Carlisle, he had left his Jeep with her for safekeeping. A decision, he suspected, he might come to later regret.

She picked up on the second ring. "Ohmigod, Mitch is that you?!" she squealed.

"Heya squirt, how are you?" She was as easily excitable as he remembered. Which reminded him of exactly why he didn't call her as often as he could have. Because what came next was as inexorable as the Great Flood of Egypt.

Maggie's avalanche of words thundered down like a ton of bricks. "Ihavesomuchtotellyou! There'sthisguythatIthinklikesme. ButIdon'tknowifIlikehimback. AndIthinkhemightaskmetoRingDance. Ohmigod,ohmigod,ohmigod! WhatshouldIdo? 'CauseIkindoflikethisOTHERguy. ButIthinkhe'saskingLisatothedance. Andgawd,she'sSOgross. Ihatehersomuch. Soyeah,whatdoyouthinkIshoulddo?"

Mitchell desperately reached out a hand to steady himself against the wall of his brownstone apartment. "Whoa, slow down sis. First of all, take a breath. And second, I have no clue what you should do. I was just calling to see if you wanted to come down here tomorrow after school and stay over 'til Sunday. 'Cause I kind of need my Jeep. And anyway, Mom already said it'd be okay if you skipped classes on Friday. So, how about it? Hooky and some shopping with Linnie? And the two of you can talk about your boy problems."

Maggie shrieked in reply, loud enough that her brother was forced to yank his cellphone away from his ear.

He tentatively pulled the phone back and asked, "So uhh, is that a yes?"

"Yesyesyes! I'llbethere," she promised.

"Okay, good. I'll see you tomorrow then. Drive safe, 'kay?"

"Iwill. Bye,Mitch. Loveyou. Seeyoutomorrow!"

With the dial tone still buzzing in his ear, Mitchell started massaging the temples of his forehead with his free hand. He had survived yet another call with his teenage sister. And God forbid if she ever Awakened, because he knew for a fact that the Consilium would get rocked to its core.

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OOC: The only active spell that Mitch has up is Ephemeral Shield. He is, understandably, a bit frazzled over his ride. So it hasn't occured to him to be casting anything else at the moment.

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Part II - Pimp My Ride
13 November, 2008

Mitchell gasped in horror at the sight of his Jeep. "What have you done?!" he cried.

Maggie gave him a demure little smile. "A little bit of customizing. I made her so pretty. Don't you just love it?"

"There are Hello Kitty stickers all over my rollbars," he fumed.

"I know! Sooo cuuute!"

"...and Powerpuff Girl bobbleheads affixed to my dashboard! And a pink bowtie with ribbons tied to my radio antenna!"

Maggie clapped her hands together in self-congratulations as she declared, "I'm a car-fashion genius!" She quickly directed her brother's attention to the kaleidoscopic pinwheels attached to the front grill, and the blinking purple lights on each of his tire rims that formed the outline of a heart. "Don't forget these," she crowed.

Linda stood by on the sidewalk, doubled over in uncontrollable laughter, with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Mitchell ground his teeth together and glared at his girlfriend. "Not funny," he grumbled. Which only made her laugh even harder.

"So anyway, you can thank me later by taking me shopping and buying me something," Maggie informed him in all seriousness.

Between his sister's insanity and his girlfriend's hysteria, Mitchell found himself fighting the urge to laugh at the ridiculousness of his situation. He was going to have to drive to one of the most important meetings of his life in this.

---

Later that evening...

Despite tempting thoughts of parking somewhere deep in the woods and walking the rest of the way to the Cormant House, Mitchell decided to just suck it up and pull right into the gravel-strewn driveway. He rolled to an eventual stop right next to an evergreen which he devoutly prayed would obscure his vehicle from casual sight. Killing the lights and the engine, he got out and made his way towards the mansion's main entrance.

Arathnos greeted him at the door, standing laconically with a quizzical look on his face, and one brow arched. "Hey Gabriel, nice..."

Mitchell's crazed glare cut him short, the dangerous glint in his eyes daring him to complete his sentence. "Don't even say it," he warned.

"...stickers."

OOC said:

Jeremiah, after much debate, decides to go with instant casts of Sybil's Sight and Mental Shield, leaving a 'flex' spot in his spell tolerance for something else: he'll put up a Incognito Presence up for now. Everything is to be cast with High Speech.

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Jeremiah slips off his gloves, then puts them back on again with a nervous twitch of the hands. Sitting there for a moment, he slips them off again, steels himself, and gets out of the car. He glances at the mages milling about the entrance of the mansion, who don't appear to have seen him sitting in his car for the past 5 minutes, taking his his gloves on and off.

Not terribly surprising, considering he had made sure the casual onlooker wouldn't see it; the ability to emanate subtle waves of bland disinterest, an ability he was intimately familiar with. With his limited ability with the Matter arcanum, Jeremiah had expanded the quality to cover objects.

OOC said:

Basically, an Incognito Presence with a conjunctional Matter 1 component for material objects.

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Armed with a similar shield of anonymity, he strides into the mansion right past the Herald and into the antechamber. Not seeing anyone else inside, Jeremiah double checks the area before bringing out a small crystal from his pocket, a small worrystone he had picked up from some curio store, and focusing intently on it.

OOC said:

If no one else shows up after he comes in, Jeremiah will begin scrutinizing the resonances of the Cormant House with the crystal for a +1 bonus on the scrutiny checks.

On second thought, Jeremiah will check twice: once with Sybil's Sight and once with Third Eye. He'll swap them out as necessary with High Speech castings, but he'll keep Sybil's Sight up for regular interaction.

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"Gabriel, this is Thorn, who I understand is to be our new sister in the Consilium," said Arathnos. "Thorn, this is Gabriel, one of the others I was telling you about."

Solarious said:

Not seeing anyone else inside...

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OOC said:

Jeremiah probably sees Thorn inside, speaking to Arathnos, who stands in the doorway. Does he still want to scrutinize the resonance with the worrystone? Although Jeremiah now appears to be just a tourist coming to learn about Salem's architectural history, fretting over the worrystone will attract Arathnos' attention, and probably that of Gabriel and Thorn. The initial result of a cursory glance with Sybil's Sight follows.

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Jeremiah, unnoticed by the three younger people standing in the doorway, felt a number of threads of fate entangling in the antechamber, but only a few intersected with his own. The weightiest of these threads pulsed and thickened as Arathnos introduced Gabriel and Thorn.

Running a hand through his mussed hair, Mitchell inhaled a deep breath to center himself. Today had been quite an ordeal for him so far, and it wasn't over yet. Thoughts of meeting the Hierarch still gave him butterflies since Melchior's earlier advice had given him little comfort.

"The little one is the salad fork..." he muttered aloud to no one in particular.

Hella_Tellah said:

"Gabriel, this is Thorn, who I understand is to be our new sister in the Consilium," said Arathnos.

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Mitchell shook himself out of his reverie at hearing the sound of his Shadow Name. Huh, what? He glanced up, sparing a quick glare for Arathnos, and focused on the sight of a young Latina also standing around, waiting. "Oh, hey. Yeah, I'm Gabriel," he confirmed, a bit lamely. "Are you here for the dinner meeting too?"

He wasn't sure if he should shake her hand or just nod his head and act cool, so he just folded his arms across his chest and tried to look sagely, figuring that's how a mage should appear. Not exactly a look that he was any good at pulling off.

Thorn nodded in greeting and gave Gabriel a little wave.

"Hey. Yeah."

For a second she felt herself stalling out. The guy was -old-. Like college old. What was she going to talk to him about? The answer came when she thought of his shadow name. Her father was, or had been, pretty Catholic, and had a certain fascination with angels.

"So...Gabriel as in the angel, or did you just like the name?"