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

[Thondor]

Previously:
When Chopesh introduces himself and confirms the memory Goliaths jaw twitches and his eyes go hard. "We should talk later, you an me, things have obviously changed, it's been a long time. . . Let's go inside."

*******
Currently:
"Spells in the sky will do that." Goliath says with a smile in response to Prometheus' comment. "I suppose proper introductions would be polite. This is my teacher Sandro, the head of Benefit. Sandro this is Thorn, Prometheus, and," (something jogs his memory) "Levanna. Levanna and I met at a coffeehouse a few months back. Their all looking for someone called Miss Jane. This is Chopesh, he hasn't said why he's here yet."

Goliath is about to take a seat in a chair thats really to small for him, when a whistling begins in the kitchen. He shoots a quick look at Sandro, who raises an eyebrow at him. Goliath sighs, "Who wants some tea?"

We should be more careful, he thinks to himself, these people could still be dangerous. Not that the mages here at the commune couldn't handle it but still.

(OOC: Active spells: Matter 2, Useen Aegis p. 197, armour 3 + kevlar vest (under clothes) 4/5 )

 

[Hella_Tellah]

They passed through a bead curtain into the cozy, windowless back room. The air was thick with cannabis smoke, and a number of beanbag chairs and Japanese-style cushions sat around a small table with a purple hookah.

Sandro, a bearded man in his late thirties wearing an MIT sweatshirt, sat in a tan-colored papasan next to the table. Taking a pull from the hookah, he did his best Caterpillar impression:

"Whoooo are yooouuu?" he croaked, with a wide, squint-eyed grin.

 

[Shayuri]

Thorn found it impossible to walk in the moccasins without compulsively wiggling her toes. The soft inner lining was comfortable, but seemed to demand that she move against it.

She shakes her head at Goliath, politely declining the tea.

The apparition behind the curtain has her waving a hand in front of her face and coughing a bit, both reacting to the smoke and concealing a startled laugh behind it. Mages, it seemed, didn't come in 'generic' packaging.

"S'cuse me, sorry about that," she said. "Like he said, I'm Thorn. Hi."

Man, I hope I don't get pulled over on the way home. There's no way they wouldn't smell this on me.

(spells up: Spirit Tongue and the Spirit Mage Sight to detect magic and the gauntlet)

 

[magic_gathering2001]

"I am Prometheus, tasked by the Nemean with finding the remnants of the Stone Assembly, thinking to seek out Ms. Jane, the last tasked such, for advice." Prometheus breaks out coughing once or twice as he breathes in the smoke. Still, he doesn't back down much, preferring to only stick his head into the hallway every so often for a fresh breath of air.

 

[Thondor]

Goliath ducks back into the room carrying an old, simple clay teapot, and a tray with some mismatched cups. He places them on the low, and now crowded table. He pours a few cups. "Help yourself, there's milk and sugar in the middle." Goliath takes the largest one for himself. "Are you sure you don't want a cup Thorn? It's good stuff." He takes a sip and pulls up a cushion.

If there's a bit of a lull, while everyone gets settled, Goliath will try to bring up his mage sight. And see if that reveals anything interesting.
(Dark Matter, p. 194, Gnosis+Matter, 4 dice)

 

[Walking Dad]

"I'm called Chomesh. Thank you for the tea. I'm here in behalf of my mentor, known as the Lion of Zion. He is a higher ranking member of the consilium. One of his collagues spoke of someone very promising and his own divinations brought him to ask me to give them", he looks at the other guests, "a hand if they need them. I'm in no position to argue his wisdom."

While speaking, he sips on his tea, still wearing a light west after leaving hat and mantle at the entrance.
[sblock=Picture]

[/sblock]
[sblock=ooc]
Hm, I think the nimbus should be something between holy and desert. Think of the place they found the grail in the Indiana Jones Films. Not old and stinky, but ancient. Light, but not holy light, but fire light, filtered through a thorn bush. The taste of smell between incense and oriental spices.

His weraring a pistol in a shoulder holster.

Active spells: Mage armor (space), mage sight (Prime)[/sblock]

 

[Hella_Tellah]

(spells up: Spirit Tongue and the Spirit Mage Sight to detect magic and the gauntlet)

Thorn felt the spirit realm close to her in this place. They weren't all that far from civilization out here, but she felt it wouldn't take much more that a small nudge to push something across the gauntlet, or to pull something through. There was a lingering presence of magic recently cast in the room, swirling around Sandro and hanging in the air.

(Dark Matter, p. 194, Gnosis+Matter, 4 dice)

Goliath's subconscious began to calculate the consistency of the smoke and the density of magic resonance in the room. The smoke itself, he realized, had been the sacrament for a spell Sandro had just finished. It was a spell Sandro had cast with some regularity. Sandro was rarely surprised by events at Benefit, and although Goliath's expertise didn't extend to the sorts of spells Sandro liked to cast, he new that this spell was the reason for it.

"Welcome to Benefit," Sandro began, putting down the mouthpiece to his hookah. "I figured that when Janey showed up a few months back, it wouldn't be too long before people showed up looking for her. Glad to see it wasn't a pylon of Seers this time!

"Janey came to us in a pretty bad state, as you'll see in a minute. She said she was being followed by all kinds of crazy things--spirits, Scelesti, something called 'the Prince'. She was real shook up, couldn't sleep, and had an arsenal of spells on her all the time. After a few days, she announced that she had to use the hallow. Well, I'm not about to deny something to my old cabal-mate, so I led her to it. She sat down on the floor and fell into a coma on the spot. Been that way ever since.

"We're keeping her fed intravenously and doing what we can to keep her body intact, but it's her mind I'm concerned about. From what I can tell, she sent her mind on an astral journey for some reason, and she's been trapped somewhere in the Temenos."

Sandro sat forward, and took another puff from the hookah. "If you need to talk to Janey, I'm afraid you'll have to go in after her."

[sblock=Rolling to know all those weird terms]
Chopesh, Thorn, and Goliath (1 success): You recognize the terms "Pylon" and "Seers." The Seers of the Throne are a group of semi-religious zealots who adamantly believe in the myth of Atlantis and the Exarchs, and are known to use intensely cruel forms of mind control. They have been at war with the mages of the pentacle for centuries.
Prometheus (6 successes): You're getting a private message. [/sblock]

 

[magic_gathering2001]

Prometheus looks particularly thoughtful as the tail progresses. When Sandro comes to its end, he speaks almost immediately in a somewhat hushed tone to Thorn, "Temenos probably serves Jane as an escape from the Prince, somewhere he cannot reach, or send his servants. Unless he imprisoned her within of his own volition, which speaks little of Jane's choice of sanctuary, we may assume her to still live, but fear to return. Of the Prince himself, I know little, bits of lore paint him as a devil or demon, which makes him akin to a pestering spirit, albiet more powerful. Should he have involvement, either the legends greatly exagerate his prowess, or we should certainly hope him to lead the other spirits, and the scelesti too if their name bears the root I believe it to bear. Plural of scelestus, or wicked, a cult would have only named themselves such were they truly despicable, or more relevantly, the type to traffic with demons and their ilk."

 

[Thondor]

Goliath, "Hmmm, this seems rather complicated, and intriguing". He takes a sip of tea, "You seem to know a lot about these things Prometheus." He pauses and looks at Sandro while he says "I get the feeling that Miss Jane is probably in the small barn past the wood pile. If so this could be quite dangerous. Do you three really think your best course of action is to speak with Jane?"

 

[Thondor]

" . . . Apparently that was the wrong thing to ask." Goliath says, uncomfortable with the silence. "My old mentor mentioned Temenos, its something to do with meditation and dreaming right? Can't you just shake her or something? And . . . has anyone tried going in after her yet?" Goliath frowns annoyed at having to show ignorance in front of Prometheus, but determined to learn something new.